


Silver and Steel

by inexplicifics



Series: Silver and Steel [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, F/M, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Needs a Hug, M/M, Polyamory, Scents & Smells, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:42:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: In an otherwise innocuous little town, Geralt is approached by a young woman who wants to travel with him. She's decent company...but she has her own secrets, and her presence may well stir up emotions Geralt doesn't know how to deal with, in himself and everyone else involved.
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Silver and Steel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614712
Comments: 42
Kudos: 378
Collections: fics i really enjoyed





	1. Amaranth

Geralt has the table to himself, despite the rather crowded tavern, partly because it is the smallest table, tucked back in the darkest corner, and partly because something about being a large golden-eyed man with twin swords on his back discourages people from approaching him.

Geralt has had enough ale to be amused by that rather than annoyed.

He is a little surprised, therefore, when someone _does_ approach his table: a woman, maybe five and a half feet tall and slender enough that Geralt probably could pick her up with one hand, in trousers and a plain tunic, on the plainer side of pretty, with pale brown skin and black hair braided ruthlessly back and - the only truly remarkable thing about her - startling green eyes.

She stops behind the empty chair across from him and inclines her head a little. “Master Witcher.” Geralt nods. Her lips quirk in a little smile. “Might I join you?”

Geralt shrugs and nods again. The woman sits and turns to beckon a serving girl, who brings over stew and bread and a mug of small beer and is gone again in a flurry of skirts before Geralt can ask for a refill on his own drink.

To his further surprise, the woman eats and drinks without speaking, until finally she mops up the last of the stew with the heel of the bread and leans back in her chair and meets his eyes without flinching. “I understand you are traveling east tomorrow,” she says.

Geralt nods. It’s no big secret.

“If you are amenable, I should like to travel alongside you. I find it is safer on the road with a companion.”

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t worried I’ll savage you?” he asks, the first words he’s actually spoken to her.

“No,” the woman says. “I know what witchers are. I do not fear you.”

Geralt draws in a deep breath, ignoring the fug of smoke and stale beer that is the background scent of the tavern and concentrating on the woman across from him. For a minor wonder, she appears to be telling the truth. She smells of lavender, and sage, and no fear at all. “What are witchers, then?” he asks, wondering which insult she will choose. _Emotionless monsters. Weapons. Freaks._

The woman smiles a little. “Protectors.”

Geralt’s eyes widen. _That_ is not the answer he expected. “I travel fast,” he warns her.

“I’ve plenty of experience on the road,” she replies. That seems unlikely - she can’t be older than twenty-three, maybe twenty-five, but she doesn’t smell like she’s lying. “I have a riding mule, and all the supplies I need. I shan’t slow you down.”

Geralt considers it, and shrugs. He’s not actually in a huge hurry - there’s no contract waiting for him - he just figures it’s smart to get out of town before wariness and moderate gratitude turn into fear, as they so often do. “Alright. I leave at dawn.”

“I will meet you at the stables then,” the woman says, and offers her hand across the table. Geralt takes it. “My name is Amaranth.”

“Geralt of Rivia,” Geralt says, though he suspects she knows that already. She nods.

“An honor to meet you,” she says. “Until tomorrow, then.”

Geralt grunts agreement, and she stands and gives him a little nod and vanishes up the stairs to the private rooms. Geralt figures it’s about even odds whether she’ll actually show up in the morning, or think better of asking to accompany a witcher; either way, the serving girls have clearly decided not to approach the table again, so Geralt takes himself up to the tiny room he’s renting, and cleans and oils his swords, and gets in a good solid few hours of meditation before he goes to sleep.

*

He’s grooming Roach in the dim pre-dawn torchlight when Amaranth arrives at the stables, putting her packs down in front of a stall and going in to start tacking up a tall grey-brown mule. She’s done by dawn, waiting at the stable door with the mule’s reins in her hands, and Geralt nods to her and leads the way out of the inn’s yard and down the street. He mounts up once they’re outside of town and heads down the road east, the gentle clopping of the mule’s hooves a quiet counterpoint to Roach’s.

They don’t speak until noon, and then it’s only Geralt pointing to a little clearing off to the side of the road and saying, “Hour’s rest.” Amaranth nods and guides her mule off the road, unsaddles it and rubs it down and gives it a nosebag even as Geralt is doing the same for Roach.

There’s a spring a little ways off into the woods, just close enough that Geralt can smell it, and he takes both waterskins and a bucket and goes off to get water, coming back to find that Amaranth is carefully checking over Roach’s hooves. She dusts her hands off and takes her waterskin with a nod of thanks, digs a strip of jerky and a bit of hardtack out of one of her saddlebags, and leans back against a tree to eat her lunch as Geralt unsheathes his swords and starts a set of basic drills. She doesn’t squeak or try to distract him, or get in his way, even by accident. Geralt didn’t expect her to be this...easy to travel with. She’s not been any trouble at all.

Geralt refills their waterskins one more time before they leave, and they let the animals drink as much as they care to; and then they tack up again and head out, still without having exchanged any words at all. Geralt is baffled. Humans are _bad_ at being quiet for hours upon hours. Amaranth, however, doesn’t seem to mind.

He chooses a clearing just as the sun is starting to set behind the mountains, and Amaranth looks it over and says, “If you’ll get wood and water, I can tend the animals and start something cooking.” Straightforward, sensible, and to the point. Geralt is starting to _like_ this woman. He grunts agreement and hands her Roach’s reins.

By the time he comes back with a full bucket of water and a bunch of dry branches, the animals are untacked and hobbled and tethered to a pair of trees far enough apart that they probably won’t try to bother each other, and are cropping grass contentedly. There’s a tiny fire burning in a little stone-lined pit, and a copper pot balanced over it that’s emitting surprisingly savory smells. Geralt stacks his wood near the fire and goes over to water the animals.

When he gets back to the fire, both Roach and the mule satisfied for now, Amaranth hands him a wooden bowl full of some sort of soup and a round of hardtack. Geralt blinks down at the soup and then gives her a questioning look.

Amaranth grins and digs something out of a saddlebag: a sort of ball of cloth that crinkles when she squeezes it. “Dried vegetables and meat and barley,” she explains. “Dump it in a pot of water, poof! Soup.”

“Hm,” Geralt says. It’s a damn good idea. He’s going to have to tell Vesemir about it.

“I prefer first watch,” Amaranth says as they finish the soup.

“Second’s fine,” Geralt says.

He meditates through first watch rather than sleeping - one night without sleep won't do him harm - and finds that Amaranth is quite serious about standing watch: she paces the boundaries of their camp, keeping her attention on the woods, and when Roach fidgets, she pauses and listens hard, clearly checking to see if the horse has heard something she didn't. Tomorrow night, Geralt might actually be able to sleep without worrying about being ambushed.

She wakes him around midnight, rolls herself in her bedroll, and falls asleep without a single qualm at being helpless in a witcher's camp.

A witcher is a protector. Geralt has never met someone who actually _believed_ that before.

*

They’re on the road again by an hour past dawn, and make good time. Geralt can’t quite forget she’s there, but she’s not precisely a _distraction_. If something attacked them, he’d have to defend her, but she’s keeping her mule close behind Roach, and there’s nothing dangerous close enough for Geralt to sense it, so he doesn’t have to _worry_ about her.

They reach another small town late in the afternoon, and a small boy catches sight of them as they approach the outskirts, gapes at Geralt for a minute, and then goes sprinting off towards the inn. By the time Geralt and Amaranth get there, there’s a little crowd gathered, and the best-dressed man pushes himself to the front as Geralt dismounts.

“Are you a witcher?” he demands.

Geralt nods. “Geralt of Rivia,” he says. “Of the Wolf School.” Not that they’ll know what that means.

“There’s something in the mill-pond,” the man says. “How much will it cost for you to kill it?”

Geralt sighs. ‘Something.’ How helpful and specific. “Depends on what it is,” he says. “Start with a night at the inn for me and my companion, and I’ll go take a look before it gets dark.”

“Done,” says the man - Geralt’s going to assume he’s the mayor or something like it - which suggests that whatever it is, it’s at least moderately dangerous. Geralt tucks a handful of potions into his belt pouch and turns to see that Amaranth has dismounted and is holding out her hand for Roach’s reins.

“I’ll get the animals settled,” she says.

Geralt shrugs and hands his horse’s reins over. “Point me at the mill-pond,” he says to the mayor, who nods and hurries down the street. The crowd doesn’t disperse behind him, and he can hear murmurs of fear. Given _mill-pond_ and the level of worry, he’s betting on a nest of drowners.

The mayor stops at the edge of town and points; the mill is obvious, its sails still turning despite a conspicuous lack of anyone nearby. “How many dead?” Geralt asks, loosening his silver sword in its sheath.

“Five,” the mayor says. “The miller and all his family.”

Geralt grimaces. “Stay back,” he says, and sets off across the grass to the mill-pond. He’s halfway there when he starts seeing the telltale puddles of drowner slime - lots of them. A large nest, then. He pauses just long enough to pull a potion vial out of his belt pouch and down it, draws his silver sword, and steps over the first puddle and into battle.

He makes it back to the inn about two hours after dusk; the mayor, in a surprising display of courage, both watched the entire battle and offered Geralt a shoulder to lean on afterwards, which was unnecessary but polite. Geralt is covered in drowner slime and bleeding from a couple of gashes, but all in all it wasn’t a bad fight.

The inn goes very quiet when Geralt walks in, but Amaranth looks up from the table where she’s been talking to half a dozen women and says, “There’s a hot bath waiting for you, and I’ve bespoken you a meal.”

Geralt blinks. The innkeeper beckons him towards a room off to the side, which turns out to be a bathing room with, as promised, a deep tub already steaming and - Geralt blinks again - a set of clothing laid out beside it, clearly his own spares from his saddlebags. The innkeeper bustles out, and Geralt strips and sinks into the bath with a sigh of pleasure.

He only gets out when the water is cold, but when he finally emerges, there’s a place for him at Amaranth’s now-empty table - in the corner, where he can see the whole room, no less - and the innkeeper puts a plate of mutton and bread and a large mug of ale in front of him almost before he’s sat down. Geralt grunts his thanks and finishes the plate in probably less time than it took to cook it. Amaranth chuckles softly and pushes her own half-finished bowl of stew over to him, and Geralt polishes that off, too.

“Do you need help with your injuries?” she asks when he sits back to savor the ale.

Geralt shakes his head. They’re not bad - half-healed already, really. Amaranth nods. “We’ve the first two rooms at the top of the stairs - I put your saddlebags in the one on the right,” she says, and rises. “Do we leave tomorrow?”

“Mid-morning,” Geralt says. He’ll have healed up by then, and it’ll give him time to go get his fee from the mayor. He can’t imagine a town this small has any further need for a witcher; honestly, he’s rather surprised they managed to acquire so large a nest of drowners to begin with. Amaranth nods again.

“Then goodnight,” she says, and heads upstairs. Geralt finishes his ale, and contemplates the looks he is getting from the townspeople. They’re...less wary than he might expect, especially after he just slaughtered a nest of drowners and he can _hear_ the mayor describing the battle in low tones to a group of other men. He’s being given his space, but no one has started muttering rude things about witchers yet, and the looks he’s getting are more thoughtful than fearful.

He’s got no particular explanation for that.

He finishes his ale and heads for bed. Maybe things will make more sense in the morning.

In the morning, the mayor is waiting for him in the inn’s main room, and presses a little pouch of silver into his hands before bustling away. Amaranth joins him at the table a few minutes later, nodding quietly to him and setting about a bowl of oatmeal porridge with determination if not enthusiasm.

People are _still_ giving Geralt thoughtful looks. It’s very odd.

*

They stop for the night in a clearing that’s obviously been used as a campsite before: there’s a firepit already made, and a smaller clearing off to the side that’s been used for latrine pits before. Amaranth tends the animals and Geralt gathers firewood and draws water from a little stream - and about halfway through doing so he realizes that they didn’t even bother to _discuss_ it. He hasn’t fallen so easily into sharing camp chores since the last time he spent a few weeks traveling with Eskel.

Amaranth is making soup again when he returns, and Geralt settles across the fire from her and says, “Where are you going?”

Amaranth sits back and looks at him for a moment, emerald eyes unreadable, then shrugs. “Anywhere the road takes me,” she says. “I’m a traveling storyteller.”

“Like a bard?”

Amaranth’s lips quirk. “Two differences: first, I collect stories and retell them, rather than making up my own, for the most part at least. And second, I don’t sing.” Her smile grows rueful. “I promise you, _no one_ wants me to sing.”

Geralt considers that while he eats his soup. “You’re quiet for a storyteller.”

Amaranth shrugs. “I talk a lot when I’m telling stories. It’s nice to rest my voice a little.”

Geralt sighs. “You want to keep traveling with me, then.”

“I do, yes.” Amaranth sets her empty bowl aside and spreads her hands. “I’ve my own reasons, of course, but I swear none of them are anything that will bring harm to you, nor to those you protect.”

She’s not a bad traveling companion - and it _does_ make life a little easier, having someone to take a watch, to do half the camp chores, to look after Roach while Geralt goes off and kills monsters. He’s got no reason to believe she’s telling the truth about her reasons being harmless...except that she doesn’t smell like she’s lying.

“What’s the mule’s name?” he asks, and Amaranth, apparently understanding that this means he’s planning on letting her tag along as long as she likes - or at least until she does something he _doesn’t_ like - relaxes, tension he hadn’t quite noticed before draining out of her shoulders.

“Thistle,” she says. “Because he bites.”

Geralt nods, and that’s the last they say to each other until he’s rolling himself up in his bedroll and she’s standing to pace the camp’s boundaries for first watch, when she says, quietly, “Goodnight, Geralt.”

Geralt hums.

*

The next village, two days along, has no work for a witcher, and doesn’t care to have one hanging about for no reason. Amaranth makes no complaints about camping instead of trying to find room at the inn. The village after that, three days’ travel through a particularly thick forest, has a ghoul problem, and Geralt takes care of it and returns to _that_ tavern to find, again, that Amaranth has bespoken him a bath and a good meal. It’s a kindness unlooked-for, and Geralt does his best not to think about it too much.

The next day, they’re traveling over a mountain pass, and a storm blows in far faster than either of them is prepared for. One moment the clouds are high and grey, the sun bright behind them, and the next minute it’s dark as dusk and the skies have opened, dumping raindrops as large as hailstones in ridiculous profusion.

And as the first crack of thunder resounds around their ears, Amaranth gestures sharply. A shimmering shield snaps into being above their heads, a dome-shaped thing which sends the water sheeting off to every side and leaves them dry. Amaranth grumbles under her breath and starts digging through her saddlebags, emerging after a moment with an oiled wool cloak, which she shrugs into, tucking the hood up so it shields her face - and only then looking over to see Geralt’s expression. He’s pretty sure he looks as startled as he feels. She looks...well, she looks like she rather wants to take back the last minute or so, and prevent him from learning what he now knows.

“You’re a sorceress,” he says.

Amaranth grimaces. “Yes,” she says. “If you put your rain cloak on, I can drop this shield.”

Geralt digs his rain cloak out and shrugs it on, and the shield vanishes. They’re both soaked in seconds - but not nearly as badly as they would have been without it. Geralt leads the way down the mountain, looking for shelter, and finds a little overhang, not even quite a cave, that will cover them and the animals, if only barely. Roach looks quite relieved when he nudges her under cover, and Thistle crowds in next to her without any sign of bad temper, apparently willing to forgo biting in favor of being dry.

Amaranth dismounts and starts unsaddling Thistle, and for a few minutes they’re both busy tending the animals and setting up as much of a camp as they _can_ \- no fire tonight, not with every bit of wood in the area soaked through, but setting the bucket just outside the overhang means they won’t lack for water, at least. When they’re done, though, Geralt doesn’t sit down.

Amaranth does, leaning against the rock wall and looking up at him wearily. She doesn’t speak.

“You’re a sorceress,” Geralt says again. He’s looming, and he knows it -

And Amaranth smells like rain, and lavender, and sage, and no fear at all.

“I am,” Amaranth says. “And if you like, I shall swear on anything you care to name that I will not use magic on you without your permission.”

Geralt grunts. “Go on,” he says.

Amaranth nods. “I swear on my blood and my magic, Geralt of Rivia, that I will never use my magic on you without your leave.” There’s an odd shiver in the air, like something was _listening_. Geralt frowns.

“So you aren’t a traveling storyteller.”

“Oh, I am,” Amaranth says. “I got...tired...of being a sorceress. I’ve been a traveling storyteller for the better part of a quarter-century, now.”

“You got _tired_ of being a sorceress,” Geralt says blankly.

“It got...painful after a while,” Amaranth says. “Not the magic, but the _being a sorceress_ , with all the baggage that goes with it. I’ve still got the _magic_. I just don’t try to change the world with it anymore.”

Geralt grunts and sits down on the other side of the alcove, considering her carefully. He’d always figured being a sorceress was like being a witcher - a permanent sort of thing. But maybe it’s just the _magic_ that’s permanent, not the...well, sorceresses are sort of political, aren’t they? Vesemir always cautions the witcher trainees to stay out of politics, for a lot of very good reasons. What do you call a magic user who isn’t a sorceress?

“So you’re a mage,” he concludes at last.

Amaranth looks a little startled. “Yes,” she says. “I am _definitely_ a trained magic user, but I’m not...not being a sorceress anymore.”

Geralt shrugs. “Alright.”

“Just like that,” Amaranth says softly. “So easily?”

Geralt shrugs again. “If you were gonna do something to me, you would have already. So you aren’t.” It would have been _much_ easier for her to enchant him while he wasn’t even _expecting_ anything.

Amaranth huffs a little laugh, and slumps back against the rock, letting her head fall back. “Well. That was less dramatic than I expected it to be.”

They’re both quiet for a while, the only sound the steady drumming of the rain and the soft crunching of the animals eating. Finally Amaranth says, “I can ward the camp. It’ll wake us up if anything dangerous gets close.”

That must be how she managed to travel alone for so long. Geralt hums. “Do it.”

Amaranth stands and reaches out of the cave to break off a small branch from a nearby tree, then uses the branch to sketch a half-circle enclosing the alcove. As the line reaches the wall near Geralt, it flares a soft green, and then fades again, until he has to look quite hard to see even the faintest trace of it.

“Done,” Amaranth says.

Geralt looks at the wet branch in her hand, the damp horses, the pouring rain. _Igni_ can light a fire, but he doesn’t think he could really keep one burning for long in these conditions. A witcher’s magic is not like a mage’s, though - not as strong, not as unruly, not as natural. It’s as much a mutation as his cat’s eyes and pale hair, as his strength and stamina. “Can you light us a fire?” he asks.

Amaranth looks down at the branch and smiles crookedly. “Yes,” she says, and puts the branch down between them, and frowns briefly at it. After a moment, the branch begins to burn with a slender blue flame, which dances atop the bark and does not seem to consume the wood. Amaranth sits down cross-legged and cups her hands over the little blue flame and sighs.

Geralt reaches over to their packs and fishes out the little copper pot and one of Amaranth’s soup-balls, and tips the rainwater out of the bucket into the pot, and starts dinner heating.

So Amaranth is a mage. That changes...nothing, really, except that Geralt has to be even less worried if they get attacked while traveling. A mage can take care of herself. Well, look at how fast she reacted today: they didn’t even get _wet_ before her shield was in place. Having wards on the camp, if they do what Amaranth says they will, means they can both sleep the night through without worrying. And Geralt is pretty sure that oath she swore is binding.

Huh. No wonder she’s not afraid of him. A mage who was a sorceress long enough to grow weary of it, and then spent a quarter-century traveling the world, and _still_ looks only twenty-five, is definitely powerful enough not to worry about a witcher’s swords. The more powerful the mage, the more slowly they age, he knows that much about magic.

...An absurdly powerful sorceress who stopped being a sorceress about twenty-five years ago. Why does that ring a bell? He was in training, then, and not paying much attention to anything outside of that, but he remembers the training masters talking among themselves about the death of someone important - of a sorceress they all spoke of with respect, when most of the training masters don’t respect anyone but maybe Vesemir -

“Fuck,” he says, and Amaranth looks up and raises an eyebrow. “You’re Amaranth the Undying.”

Amaranth sighs heavily. “I was, yes.”

“Still not dead,” Geralt points out. Amaranth chuckles.

“A fair point. But I haven’t claimed that name in twenty-five years, and I don’t plan to do so again unless I truly must.”

Geralt hums. He’s never wanted to _stop_ being a witcher. It’s what he was raised to do; he’s good at it, and he even enjoys it - parts of it, anyhow, the bits that don’t involve being covered in drowner guts - and it’s what he’ll die doing. But he has to admit that on occasion he’s sort of wished he could just...put down the witcher-ness, just for a night. Walk into a town and not be greeted with wary looks and fear; enter a tavern without the chance of being told, ‘We don’t serve witchers here.’ And Amaranth the Undying was a sorceress for at least a century, probably more. After that long...yeah, Geralt can kind of understand why she’d want to put aside the titles and the fame and just...be someone else. Someone quiet, and unobtrusive, who tells stories for her supper and doesn’t get asked to save the world at all.

“Alright,” he says at last. “Just Amaranth.”

Amaranth smiles at him, broad and sweet. “Thank you.”

Geralt hums.


	2. Traveling

So they go on, and somewhat to Geralt’s surprise, it keeps working. Amaranth’s camp wards are good: the one time a bear decides it wants to come and bother them, the wards start jangling quietly when it’s still several hundred paces away, and Geralt is on his feet with both swords out in plenty of time to convince it it wants to go the other way. About half the towns they pass through have some sort of problem that needs a witcher, and Geralt leaves Amaranth in whatever passes for a tavern and goes off and kills whatever it is, and comes back to find that there’s a hot meal ready for him, and a bath if the inn has tubs, and a room reserved.

Townspeople in places that don’t need a witcher often give Geralt dirty looks and refuse him service, and they camp alongside the road, and Amaranth never complains. When they _can_ get a place in an inn, though, Amaranth sets up in the inn’s main room and tells stories. Geralt tucks himself into a back corner where he won’t be too distracting and - well, he doesn’t mean to get caught up in her tales, but she’s _good_. She does the voices, and she has the art of pausing at just the right moment _down_ , and she chooses stories Geralt hasn’t heard before.

...For the most part. Because the last story she tells every night, before she takes the little pile of coins that have been tossed onto the hearth in front of her and makes her bow, is always of the White Wolf.

She gets the details right, actually, on every tale she tells, and she - well - she puts the emphasis in places Geralt doesn’t expect. On the viciousness of whichever monster he’d killed, yes, but also on the...he hesitates to use the word ‘heroics,’ because he isn’t a hero, but she makes him sound like one. And she doesn’t stop with the monster’s death: she talks about the townspeople’s _reactions_ to him, about how after he saved a town or a child or a traveling caravan or what have you, they treated him like a mad dog and sent him on his way, as often as not still bleeding.

Geralt doesn’t know why she’s doing it. Witchers are distrusted and feared - that’s just how it _is_. He’s used to it. They all are. Why bother trying to change people’s minds?

The thing is, though, she doesn’t try to shame the townspeople for fearing him. The way she tells it, with little asides and conspiratorial nods, makes it sound like she knows that _these_ people would be much more sensible, of course, would never do such a thing as cast out the man who saved them; _they_ know better than to fear their own protector. And when the story is done and everyone’s heading home or going back to quiet drinking, Geralt notices that people - well, they nod to him, not exactly _comfortably_ , but with a sort of awkward courtesy that isn’t nearly the usual wariness.

“Alright, why?” he asks her, as they leave the most recent tiny village. Amaranth raises an eyebrow at him.

“Why…?”

“Why tell _those_ stories?”

“Ah.” Amaranth sighs. “And why that way, you mean.”

Geralt hums.

Amaranth shrugs. “I’ve met monsters, Geralt of Rivia. The kind you kill, and the human kind, too. Witchers might not be human anymore - that’s up for debate, I suppose - but you aren’t monsters. _You_ aren’t a monster. It isn’t right for people to treat you like one. And hell - maybe I haven’t quite given up on changing the world.”

Geralt blinks at her for a moment. “Hmm,” he says at last, and rides on.

*

He’s sort of gotten used to the rhythm of traveling with Amaranth - the _ease_ of traveling with her, if he’s honest with himself - when of course it changes. He doesn’t quite realize it has changed at first, though.

The precipitating moment, when he looks back, is the night he goes out to fight an alghoul and manages to not notice the _second_ alghoul until it’s jumping at him from behind. He kills them both, but he gets a couple of really quite unpleasant gashes in the process, deep enough that even a witcher is going to take a while to heal. When he makes it back to the inn - having lost rather more blood than he likes to think about - Amaranth looks up from her usual table of townswomen and then shoots to her feet. She’s across the room faster than Geralt had realized she could move, and tucks herself under his less-injured arm without flinching from the blood and gore streaking his clothing. She’s stronger than he thought, too. Wiry rather than slender, he thinks vaguely.

“This way,” she says, and steers him across the room and into a bathing room, which clears out pretty much instantly. Amaranth takes his swords and sets them aside carefully, then peels his shirt off, looks at the gashes on his back, and winces. “Those are going to need stitches.”

Geralt nods. He can tell.

Amaranth leans out the door and sends someone scurrying for Geralt’s packs - he’s never heard that note of command in her voice before - and returns to kneel at his feet and start unlacing his boots. They’re off in moments, and she grimaces at his pants and unlaces those, too. Geralt would make a bawdy joke if he weren’t in quite so much pain.

One of the inn’s serving girls pokes her head in just long enough to drop Geralt’s packs by the door. Amaranth hurries to them, finding Geralt’s little medical kit easily and producing a needle and a length of sinew-thread and a little jar of salve.

Her hands are steady and gentle as she wipes the blood from his back and sews each gash shut. She’s done this before. Geralt wonders when - sorceresses presumably don’t spend a lot of time patching people up by hand, do they? But then again, he knows nothing about how sorceresses are trained.

“Right,” she says once the last gash is sutured shut. “Up and into a tub with you, if you think you can.”

Geralt grunts and levers himself to his feet; his unlaced pants fall around his ankles, and Amaranth tucks herself under his arm again as he steps out of them. That explains _that_ , then. Good planning on her part. He manages to step into the tub without falling over, though it’s a close thing, and sinks down into the blood-hot water with a wince as it stings his wounds.

“I’ll put salve on those when you get out,” Amaranth says. “Close your eyes.”

Geralt does, and Amaranth pours a bucket of water over his head, sluicing blood and nastier things out of his hair. It’s only as he shakes the water from his eyes that he realizes, quite abruptly, that he hasn’t objected at all - has, in fact, done exactly as Amaranth wants him to since he walked in the inn door. He’s not usually so biddable.

On the other hand, she hasn’t told him to do anything that wasn’t sensible.

The only people Geralt’s ever obeyed so _instinctively_ are Vesemir...and Eskel, when Eskel really _means_ what he says. The two people Geralt trusts with his life.

Trusting a sorceress, even a retired one, even one who’s sworn never to use magic against him, might well be a very stupid decision, but apparently Geralt’s instincts have already made it.

Amaranth pours another bucket of water over Geralt’s head. “Can you scrub yourself down, or do I need to?”

Geralt grunts and picks up the soap. It hurts a bit to bend, but not enough to keep him from doing so, and getting the blood and ick off of him is worth a little pain.

He’s already feeling a bit better by the time he’s clean - witcher healing is truly a marvelous thing - and when he stands, Amaranth hands him a towel and lets him get himself out of the tub. She’s got a new pair of pants laid out for him, though no shirt, sensibly enough. He _does_ manage to get the pants on without help, and sits down to let her rub the salve over the slowly-closing wounds.

She picks up his swords and gets him up the stairs to his room, ordering a serving girl to bring food as they pass through the main room, and basically pours two big bowls of thick stew down him, and then Geralt sort of mentally shrugs, sprawls out on his front, and is asleep in seconds. Amaranth hasn’t done anything to him in almost four months of travel; he may as well trust that that’s going to hold true tonight.

She’s still sitting beside the bed when he wakes in the late morning, watching him with slightly bleary eyes, her back against the wall and her arms wrapped around her tucked-up knees. Geralt sits up and shrugs his shoulders a few times; the gashes on his back ache, but they’re healing well by the feel of it. He’ll probably have scars, but far less visible ones than he _would_ have had if Amaranth hadn’t stitched him up.

“Thanks,” he says. Amaranth smiles a little.

“I have a favor to ask,” she says.

Geralt stills. What sort of favor does she think might balance the care she gave him last night? From almost anyone else, he’d assume - well, he’s not sure. Killing something, maybe, or even sexual favors. From Amaranth...he can’t quite guess. He raises an eyebrow at her and hums.

Amaranth sighs and scrubs a hand over her face. “I swore I’d never use magic on you without your leave.” Geralt nods. “I hold to that. But - if you’re ever so badly hurt you can’t _give_ me leave in the moment, may I have permission to use magic to heal you?”

Geralt stares at her. That is...not what he was expecting. He can’t quite work out how it’s a favor to _her_. He turns it over in his head a couple of times, frowning, and still can’t make it fit. “Why?” he asks at last.

Amaranth looks at him quietly for a while, expression utterly unreadable. Finally she sighs and runs a hand over her hair, tugs on the end of her messy braid. “Because the world would be a poorer place without you in it, Geralt of Rivia,” she says quietly.

Geralt doesn’t quite know what to do with that. But there’s no lie in the way Amaranth meets his eyes, in the lavender-and-sage-and-worry of her scent. “Alright,” he says. “If I’m that badly hurt, you’ve got permission.”

“Thank you,” Amaranth says, as though he’s given her a gift worth more than gold.

*

So that’s the first change, and Geralt finds himself playing her words over in his head at odd times, turning them over and over and wondering at them: _I know what witchers are: Protectors. The world would be a poorer place without you in it._ Those, and the care in her hands as she stitched his injuries, and the fact that she’s always got a hot bath and a meal ordered and waiting for him when he gets back from a hunt, and the speed with which she crossed the inn to support him.

He doesn’t know what to do with any of that, so he tries not to think about it too much. It’s not as though he doesn’t have abundant distractions: there are always monsters to hunt, and potions to brew, drills to run and his swords and armor to tend.

He does keep letting her help patch him up when he needs it, and discovers he enjoys the way the worry fades from her scent each time, leaving only soothing lavender and sage.

The second change comes as spring turns to summer, and more people flood the roads, taking advantage of long days and pleasant weather to travel and trade. More people on the roads means more people at the inns, and one night in early summer the innkeeper winces when Amaranth requests two rooms, and says very apologetically - to her, not Geralt - “I’m so sorry, miss, we’ve only got one left.”

(Geralt has started letting Amaranth deal with innkeepers, and with negotiating for time in apothecaries’ workshops, because people are less likely to refuse a young-looking storyteller than they are a witcher. It’s cut down on the amount of time he has to spend growling at people quite a lot.)

Amaranth doesn’t hesitate. “One’s fine,” she says.

The innkeeper glances over her shoulder at Geralt, who is trying not to loom too obviously, and lowers his voice to a murmur that Geralt supposes a normal man might not be able to hear. “Are you _sure_ , miss?”

“Quite sure, thank you,” Amaranth says, an edge of ice on the words, and the innkeeper shrugs and directs them to a little room up on the top floor. There is, of course, only one bed, though it’s a reasonable size.

“I could sleep in the stables,” Geralt offers. It’s not like he hasn’t done that before. Roach is good about not stepping on him.

Amaranth gives him a _look_. “If you were going to lose control and ravish me, I assume you would have done so at some point in the _months_ we’ve spent together on the road. As you haven’t, I’m not particularly worried about sharing a bed with you. You don’t toss and turn, or snore.” And that seems to be that, as far as Amaranth’s concerned; she dumps her packs by the foot of the bed and heads downstairs to find a meal. Geralt puts his own packs down and follows her slowly.

On the one hand, he’s rather pleased by her continuing complete lack of fear. Almost everyone he has to deal with stinks of fear at least a little, at least initially, but Amaranth’s lavender-and-sage has never been tainted with the sour smell of fear, not even the night he discovered she was a mage - not even with Geralt looming over her and scowling darker than the clouds above.

On the other hand, her words have unexpectedly put a number of compelling images into his mind. He hasn’t thought of Amaranth like that before. Oh, he can smell that she’s often quite attracted to him - the lust-smell spikes whenever she watches him drill, which is oddly flattering - but she’s never said or done anything about it, and _lust_ is not the same thing as actually wanting to fuck.

Come to think of it, Geralt realizes as he reaches the common room and Amaranth looks up and gestures to the seat beside her, the one in the corner so Geralt can keep his back to the wall, he hasn’t bothered to go looking for a whore since...since he let Amaranth join him, actually. He ponders _that_ over a mug of fairly bad ale and a plate of decent chicken pie, and finally comes to the conclusion that - well - that gritting his teeth through the initial wash of fear-scent that every encounter with a new whore involves has become a lot less appealing when he’s got Amaranth’s company guaranteed, her quiet companionship and her peaceful, fearless scent. When he didn’t have anything to _compare_ it to, it was bearable, working through the fear-scent to get his pleasure as he could, but now he _does_ have something to compare it to, and...well...

He doesn’t want to ruin whatever this odd relationship with Amaranth is.

Best to keep doing nothing, as he has been. Better not to rock the boat. She’s the closest thing he has to a friend besides Eskel, and he doesn’t want that to change.

He goes to sleep that night with his back to her, and the firm intention to keep it that way; but he wakes up with Amaranth tucked into the curve of his body, one of his arms wrapped firmly around her waist and his nose buried in her hair, the scent of lavender and sage filling his world. She’s not asleep - he suspects her heartbeat kicking up as she woke is what woke _him_ \- but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t squeak or flail or object, and her scent stays lavender-and-sage without any fear at all. She lies still for a moment, and Geralt can almost hear her thinking, and then, quite deliberately, she relaxes, letting her breath out in a long sigh, and just lies there, breathing easily, smelling of lavender and sage and contentment.

It takes Geralt a minute to _place_ that scent, since it’s not one people often have around _him_.

After a few minutes, he decides that if she’s not going to make a fuss about it, neither will he, and lets her go with a companionable sort of good-morning hum; and they both get up and go about their day without ever speaking of it.

That night, as she’s laying out their bedrolls in camp, she glances over at him and raises an eyebrow. Geralt thinks about it for a long moment, and shrugs. He _did_ sleep well with a warm body beside him and the scent of lavender and sage surrounding them.

Their bedrolls get put out beside each other every night after that, and Amaranth stops bothering to pay for two rooms at the inns. But there’s nothing sexual about it, as far as Geralt can tell. He likes having someone next to him, breathing steadily and smelling good and _safe_ ; it soothes something deep in his instincts. Presumably Amaranth is also getting something out of being snuggled by a witcher, though frankly, Geralt can’t imagine what.

*

Midsummer comes and goes, and Geralt turns the arc of their travels slowly north and west again towards Kaer Morhen. They’re almost there, and the nights are getting cold enough that it’s pleasant to have Amaranth warm against him and both their blankets heaped atop them, when Geralt realizes suddenly that he _can’t_ bring her back to Kaer Morhen with him. She’s not a witcher; she’s not even a witcher’s lover or adopted child, who might be accepted, if reluctantly. She’s just...the best traveling companion he’s ever had.

“It’s only witchers at Kaer Morhen,” he says that night, after they’ve finished off the rabbit he caught that afternoon.

Amaranth considers this and nods. “Is there a village nearby, or a town?”

Geralt nods.

“Then I can winter there, and you can find me again in the spring -” Amaranth hesitates. “If you want to travel with me again next year.”

“Yes,” Geralt says, and Amaranth smiles, bright and sweet.

“Alright then,” she says. “Drop me off in whichever town seems best, and I’ll be there in the spring.”

Geralt hums, and if that night he holds her a little closer, breathes in the scent of lavender and sage and contentment a little deeper, neither of them mentions it at all.

There’s a town down at the foot of the mountains with quite a good inn, and Amaranth manages to get herself a bargain consisting of _her_ promise to stick around and tell stories until spring, and the innkeeper’s promise to feed and house her and Thistle until then, so she sees Geralt off with a cheerful-looking wave, and Geralt doesn’t feel too worried about leaving her behind...even aside from the fact that she’s a ridiculously-powerful mage and could probably portal herself to somewhere warm and sunny if she wanted to. Certainly given that _he’s_ the one who dropped her off, and was very audibly clear about the fact that he’d be coming back to find her in the spring, he doesn’t think anyone is going to try to mess with her. People in this town have a decent amount of respect for witchers, and a healthy understanding of how unwise it is to _anger_ them.


	3. Eskel

He makes it up to the castle just ahead of the first big snowstorm of the season. He has a moment of rueful amusement, as he gets Roach untacked and fed and makes his way across the courtyard to the main building: if Amaranth was here, she could put one of her shields up, and he wouldn’t be soaked through with snowmelt. She doesn’t do that _often_ , but it’s fucking useful when she does.

As he pushes the door to the main hall open, he’s greeted by a gleeful howl, which is all the warning he gets before Eskel vaults one of the tables and pounces on him. It’s just enough warning for Geralt to drop his packs and catch his fellow witcher in a bear-hug, both of them pounding the other on the back and shoulders and swearing happily.

“Fuck, you’re a sight for sore eyes, you grumpy bastard,” Eskel says at last, pulling away to put his hands on Geralt’s shoulders and look him up and down. Checking for new scars, the same as Geralt is doing to _him_ , and Geralt has a few, same as Eskel does. They’ll have some stories to tell. “Come and sit down and tell me what you’ve been killing,” Eskel adds, and picks up one of Geralt’s packs; Geralt takes the other and follows Eskel over to the seat he’d abandoned earlier to pounce on Geralt, which has an empty one beside it.

There’s always an empty seat next to Eskel’s, because that’s where Geralt sits - and if Geralt isn’t there, then no one sits there. Every witcher has their little quirks that the others learn to work around, and Eskel’s insistence on having a place beside him for Geralt at all times is a minor one, all things considered.

The food is plain but good, and there’s plenty of it, and fairly decent ale, and Geralt listens to his companions banter and swear and boast, and feels the tension draining out of him. No one here is going to look at him askance, or wonder in not-quite-low-enough voices whether he’s _tame_ , or throw rotten vegetables at him. No one here will treat him like a freak, because they’re all freaks together. It may be cold and isolated and full of training masters who are willing to kill a dozen boys to get a single witcher, but Kaer Morhen is home, and Geralt is always glad to reach it.

Eskel wraps an arm around Geralt’s shoulders once the meal is over and says, “Let’s get your stuff up to our room and then drop you in a bath, hey, White Wolf?”

Geralt grunts agreement. He and Eskel don’t _have_ to share a room - there’s plenty of space in this old stone pile - but they’ve roomed together since they were children, since before they were witchers, and neither of them is inclined to give that up now. Their room is about halfway up one of the towers, with shuttered windows that, when there isn’t a storm, can be opened to provide a beautiful view of the mountains. Eskel has closed the shutters tightly and packed moss into the cracks.

There's a tub of water over by the fire, and Eskel heats it with a careless spell as Geralt sets his swords aside and shucks his clothes. “You don’t reek as bad as you usually do by this time of year,” Eskel observes as Geralt slides into the water.

“Got a traveling companion,” Geralt says, sinking down until only his head is above water and leaning back against the tub’s side with a sigh. “She makes sure I bathe.”

“Oh she does, does she,” Eskel says, waggling his eyebrows madly. Geralt sighs heavily at him.

“If I’d meant a lover, I’d have said a lover. She’s a traveling companion.”

“Huh,” Eskel says, looking a little taken aback. “What’s she do, that she can spend her time following a witcher around?”

“These days, traveling storyteller,” Geralt says, closing his eyes as the water’s heat really starts to work on some of the older aches he’s been carrying around. As nice as the baths Amaranth orders for him are, he can never _really_ relax in some nameless inn or other. He never really relaxes except _here_ , in their room, with Eskel to watch his back.

Though curled around Amaranth with her scent filling his world, tucked away in a cave or a campsite behind her wards, is starting to come a close second. Geralt _really_ doesn’t know what to feel about that.

“Like a bard?”

“Less singing,” Geralt says. He _has_ heard Amaranth sing, actually, because sometimes she sings to herself while she’s setting up camp, and he can understand why she never tried to become a bard. Her speaking voice is quite pleasant, and her storytelling is marvelous, but her grasp of what notes are and where they go is...erratic, to say the least. _She_ doesn’t know he’s heard her, because she hasn’t quite realized how good his hearing _is_ , and cuts off as soon as she sees Roach prick her ears to signal Geralt’s return from gathering wood and water.

“Alright,” Eskel says slowly. “And before ‘these days’?”

Geralt hesitates. He’s never kept secrets from Eskel, nor Eskel from him - it’d be like trying to keep a secret from _himself_. But this isn’t truly his secret to tell. “No one else knows,” he growls at last, an order, and opens his eyes to glare at Eskel and make sure he understands.

“My lips are sealed,” Eskel promises at once. “You know me, Geralt, I don’t care if she used to be a whore or a thief or what have you.”

Geralt chuckles. “Nothing like that. Sorceress.”

Eskel’s eyebrows almost hit his hair. “I didn’t think you could _stop_ being a sorceress.”

“Still got the magic and the training,” Geralt says. “Just doesn’t use it much. I think she faked her own death a while back to get out of the politics.”

“Seems like a smart decision to _me_ ,” Eskel says, grinning. “Fuck politics. What’s this unexpectedly sensible ex-sorceress named, then?”

“Amaranth,” Geralt says, and of course Eskel gets it even faster than Geralt did.

“Ama - Faked her own - You fucking impossible bastard, you’ve been traveling with _Amaranth the fucking Undying_?”

“Just Amaranth now.”

“What the _fuck_ , Geralt,” Eskel says. “What the _actual impossible fuck_. Only you! The rest of us go out on the Path and kill drowners and fleders and what-have-you and never run into _any_ bullshit like this, and you go wandering off and end up traveling with an actual _legend_. What the _fuck_.”

Geralt closes his eyes and lets Eskel rant. It’s safe enough; between the soundproofing of thick stone walls and heavy doors, and the fact that no one else rooms on this floor, no one’s going to hear him.

Eskel finally winds down with a grumpy, “And you probably already had this freakout _months_ ago, didn’t you, you bastard.”

“Yep,” Geralt says. Eskel laughs ruefully.

“Fuck you. Fine. So what’s it like, traveling with a legend, then?”

Geralt shrugs. “She’s sensible. Doesn’t talk much on the road. Smells good.” He considers for a moment. “Green eyes.”

“I’m just gonna have to meet her myself,” Eskel says. “Fuck knows getting an actual _description_ out of you’s gonna be like pulling teeth.”

Geralt tries to imagine Amaranth meeting Eskel, and his imagination fails him. Hopefully they’ll get along.

“So what else did you do this year, besides acquire the world’s _least_ likely traveling companion?” Eskel asks, and Geralt opens his eyes and raises one leg to point to the new scar running down his calf and starts talking about the encounter with a particularly clever griffin. Eskel leans forward to run his fingers over the scar and grins or winces or grunts at appropriate points, and when Geralt has finished, shrugs off his shirt to show a new scar across his shoulder and tell his own first tale.

When the water finally gets too cold for comfort, Geralt pries himself out of the tub, and Eskel throws a towel at him, and they tumble together into the big bed, naked but for their medallions, and burrow under the covers until they’ve made their own little cocoon of warmth. Eskel smells of steel and silver and sword oil, and under all of that, something Geralt’s never been able to place. It’s long since become the scent he thinks of as _home_.

He’s never tried to define what this is between him and Eskel - doesn’t care to try now. It’s just always been the two of them, since the day Eskel was first brought to Kaer Morhen and they went tumbling into the dirt together as children will. Eskel is a sort of strange mirror, Geralt sometimes thinks: like looking at himself as he could have been, white hair and golden eyes swapped out for simple brown and amber. Before the mutagens, they were as alike as two peas; now the resemblance is muted, but still _there_. Geralt is faster, stronger, sturdier, but Eskel is always right behind him, as reliable as Geralt’s own right hand.

It’s not like they’re faithful to each other or some shit like that. When they’re out on the Path, they’ll each take lovers or pay for whores as the mood takes them, and bring back stories to tell each other. But when they’re in Kaer Morhen, they’re Geralt-and-Eskel, inseparable, spoken of in one breath and never far from each other’s sides, sharing room and bed and bodies, clothing and swords and potions. What’s Geralt’s is Eskel’s, and what’s Eskel’s is Geralt’s, and nobody at Kaer Morhen even bothers to bat an eye anymore. It’s just...how it is.

It’s late, and Geralt has traveled all day, but they’re _witchers_. He can stay up a little longer.

It’s Eskel who kisses him first - Geralt is still basking in warmth and comfort and the smells that tell him he is home, and safe, and right where he ought to be. Once Eskel _does_ kiss him, though - well, Geralt’s not going to leave him hanging. Never has before, and never will. Eskel tastes like ale, and beneath that like himself, the taste that goes with that undefinable scent, and Geralt growls low in his throat and rolls Eskel over and pins him down and kisses him like he’s _starving_. Eskel laughs into the kiss.

“White Wolf,” he says, when Geralt pulls away, and rolls them back over - there’s a reason their shared bed is so big, and it’s not just because they’re both broad-shouldered men - and their next kiss is full of teeth, fierce and ravenous. Geralt gets a hand in Eskel’s hair, and Eskel shoves a hand down between them to wrap around both of their pricks, and Geralt snarls and Eskel snarls back and they’re rutting against each other so hard even the ancient witcher-sturdy bed starts to creak, and fuck, but Geralt has _missed this_.

“Next time I’ll fuck you,” Eskel promises, and Geralt laughs.

“Promises, promises,” he says, and Eskel twists his hand over the tips of their pricks, and Geralt comes with a shout, and Eskel follows him, just like Eskel always follows him, and slumps down atop him, heavy and warm and stinking of sex.

Geralt could happily stay in that moment pretty much forever. Eskel makes it about ten minutes before he gets up and wets a cloth and wipes them both at least mostly clean, and then Geralt hauls him back into the bed and curls around him, one arm heavy over Eskel’s chest to keep him there, tucked up against Geralt right where he belongs.

*

They fall asleep in a tangle of limbs and hair, and Geralt sleeps himself out, as he never does on the road, and wakes well past dawn to find that Eskel has already gotten up. There’s a scrawled note on a slate on the table letting Geralt know that Eskel has tended to Roach - though he won’t do it again after today, naturally - and will be down in the training hall beating the crap out of Lambert whenever Geralt wants to join them.

Geralt snorts a laugh at the note, eats the bread and cheese Eskel has left for him, finds his least-disgusting set of clothing, and heads down to throw the rest of his clothes into the communal laundry tub and see about getting a good spar in. There’s nothing quite like fighting another witcher; there’s a joy in it, like the joy of battle against a monster but purer somehow because everyone involved knows it’s going to end with getting a drink together and swearing at each other cheerfully and making plans to do it again tomorrow.

Everyone else feels about the same way, so there are a couple of dozen witchers - the entirety of the Wolf School, in fact - in the training hall, about half of them sparring and the other half heckling, and a little group of half-trained boys in a corner watching with wide eyes. They haven’t gone through the Trial of the Grasses yet, so none of them can even _imagine_ being able to move as fast as the fully-trained witchers. One of them sees Geralt come in and pokes the others, and then they’re all staring at Geralt, eyes wide, and he can hear even over the thud and clang of the fighters when one of them murmurs, “The White Wolf!” and all the others gasp.

This is why Geralt doesn’t help with the training. The awe is almost as grating as fear.

Eskel ducks under Remus’s sword and punches him in the face to end their bout, and comes over to sling an arm around Geralt’s shoulders, smelling of sweat and a little blood - witcher sparring is not a bloodless sport - and says, “So, do I get to beat up on you first, or d’you want to warm up with someone else?”

“Beat up on me, hm?” Geralt says, and ducks out from under Eskel’s arm to grab one of the weighted wooden swords they use to keep sparring from being a _deadly_ sport rather than just a bloody one. “Loser heats winner’s bath.”

“Done,” Eskel says, and raises his own wooden sword, and then they’re going at it, hammer and tongs, both of them grinning like madmen. They brawl all up and down the room, the other witchers clearing back against the walls and cheering particularly clever moves. Geralt loses his sword at one point and ends up grabbing a fireplace poker by accident, and Eskel trips over a bench and does a _spectacular_ back-somersault that gets them a round of applause from the watching witchers - and they end up, finally, with Geralt sitting on Eskel’s stomach with his fireplace poker flat against Eskel’s throat, and Eskel’s sword clattering against a wall somewhere off to the left.

“Yield,” Geralt says, still grinning. There’s blood on his teeth and he might have a broken nose again, and he’s wrenched a shoulder, and he feels _wonderful_.

“Fuck you,” Eskel says, grinning back. “You lost your fucking _sword_.”

“Yep,” Geralt says, and Eskel makes a damn good try at knocking Geralt off-balance, and there’s a rather confusing moment where both of them have a hand on the poker, and then Geralt manages to get one knee between Eskel’s and _heave_ , and he’s lying atop Eskel, pinning him down, with the poker back across Eskel’s throat. “Yield, I said.”

“Oh, hell,” Eskel says, and sighs. “Fine, I yield, you bastard.”

Geralt rolls to his feet and offers Eskel a hand up, and over in the corner, he can hear Vesemir saying to the trainees, “And that’s why we spar with _wood_ , not live steel.”

“Put the damn poker back,” Eskel says, shaking himself back into some semblance of dignity. “And then go beat up on Gweld or something.”

Geralt turns and cocks his head at Gweld, who shrugs and grabs a wooden sword. “Sure, my turn to get myself a set of bruises,” he says amiably, and Geralt goes to put the poker back and find where his sword got to, and the other witchers come ambling back out into the middle of the hall to start sparring again.

He spars until lunchtime, getting matches in with Gweld and Clovis and Gascaden, and then one with Varin that’s as long as the other three put together and ends in a draw, both of them panting and bloody and snarling. The trainees look even more awed after that, unfortunately; but then, Geralt can remember when he was that young, and how _he_ would have felt watching anyone fight the swordmaster to a draw. Varin actually gives Geralt an approving nod, which feels damn good, even if all the swordmaster _says_ is, “You’re still leaving a bit of a gap on your left - work on that.” Given that the keep would probably fall in if Varin ever actually _complimented_ anyone, Geralt figures he’ll take what he can get.

And then there’s food, plain but hearty and _lots_ of it, and then Geralt and Eskel go upstairs and open a window and shovel snow into the tub by the heaping armful, and Eskel gives Geralt a filthy look and heats the snow until the tub is full of steaming bathwater, and Geralt gets in and hauls Eskel in after him. The tub isn’t technically _meant_ for two, but it’s just barely big enough, and hey, this way Eskel doesn’t have to wait to get clean.

“You are _such an asshole_ ,” Eskel says, but he’s laughing when he says it. “Turn around, I’ll get your hair.”

Eskel’s hands are gentle, and Geralt leans back against Eskel’s drawn-up knees and just _basks_.

“White Wolf,” Eskel says in his ear. “Great cat, more like - if I scratch you behind the ears, will you purr?”

“Try it and see,” Geralt says, too relaxed to even pretend to be irked.

“Maybe I will,” Eskel says, but he doesn’t scratch behind Geralt’s ears, he gets both hands on Geralt’s shoulders and rubs, hard, digging his fingers into the knots, and Geralt groans and slumps back in pleasure.

“Alright, fuck it, get into the damn _bed_ ,” Eskel says, and Geralt manages to get out of the bath without falling over and flops out full-length on the bed. Eskel actually takes the time to dry off, which Geralt maybe should have done, before he knee-walks up the bed to straddle Geralt’s waist and pours oil - when did he get oil? Geralt’s not sure, but fuck it - over Geralt’s shoulders, and starts to _really_ dig his fingers in. Geralt doesn’t have to do anything but lie there and groan with pleasure as _months-old_ knots loosen and relax, until he’s basically a puddle on the bed, eyes closed and hands lax where they’re draped over a pillow, and his whole back feels better than it has...well, since last winter, the _last_ time Eskel did this for him.

Eskel works his way down Geralt’s back in slow increments, humming softly to himself as he gets into a rhythm: oil, stroke, find a knot, work it out, stroke again until Geralt is groaning, more oil, repeat.

When he finally reaches Geralt’s ass, Geralt spreads his legs. “I did promise, didn’t I,” Eskel murmurs, and strokes an oily finger down between Geralt’s buttocks. “I should really make you ask.”

Geralt hums contentedly and says, “Please.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Eskel says fondly. “You’re all grumpy and taciturn and stoic-emotionless-witcher until even _I_ forget you can be anything else, and then you just -”

“Please,” Geralt says again, smiling against the pillow, and Eskel laughs.

“Bastard,” he says, and slides a finger into Geralt without any more preamble. Geralt shudders and spreads his legs wider. Fuck, he always forgets how good this feels - he might take lovers out on the Path sometimes, but he never lets anyone else do _this_. How could he trust anyone else at his unprotected back? So it’s always a surprise how fucking _good_ it is, how much he _wants_ it.

Eskel doesn’t bother to tease, just goes from one finger to two to three as quickly as he can, until Geralt is panting against the pillow and his hands are tangled in the sheets, holding on tight to brace himself, and then Eskel pulls his hand away, and ranges himself over Geralt, kissing the back of his neck, and slides into him slow and easy as dripping honey.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and reaches up to lace his fingers between Geralt’s, and moves slow and steady as the tides, an easy rocking that ratchets the pleasure higher and higher without ever getting sharp enough to crest. Geralt usually has a very good sense of time, but he has no idea how long it is before Eskel says, “Fuck, Geralt, I’ve gotta - _Geralt -_ ” and thrusts in harder, shuddering as he comes.

The warm heat of it is enough to finally push Geralt over that waiting edge, and he groans, “ _Eskel_ ,” as he comes.

They lie there for a long time, still entwined, until Geralt finally says, “Gonna need to change the sheets,” and Eskel rolls away, laughing.

“Gonna need another _bath_ ,” he says, and this time, Geralt heats the water.


	4. Spring

Geralt - like all the other witchers in Kaer Morhen - truly enjoys the months of training and sparring and boasting, the occasional hunts for nothing more dangerous than deer or boar to stock the pantry, the long quiet hours brewing potions and experimenting with new formulas, but they’re all ready for spring by the time it finally rolls around. A witcher without monsters to kill gets _antsy_ , and Geralt has his swords and gear in perfect condition, his saddlebags packed and provisions stowed, a good week before the trail is actually clear enough to get a horse down the mountain. To be fair, so does Eskel. They’re the first out that spring, both of them eager to get back on the Path.

And Geralt is eager to see Amaranth again. He’s _loved_ these last three months of sleeping in a warm tangled heap with Eskel, but there’s been something missing, and right around the middle of the second month he figured out what it was: the scent of lavender and sage, and Amaranth’s heartbeat, faster than any witcher’s, quiet and unobtrusive but so soothing he didn’t even consciously know it was _there_ until he couldn’t hear it anymore. He hasn’t mentioned this to anyone, but he’s pretty sure Eskel’s figured it out. Hard not to, when Geralt finally gave in, about a week after he figured out what the problem was, and filched a little bag of lavender and sage from the potions workroom, and hung it from one of the bedposts. It’s not really an adequate substitute, but it’s enough that Geralt doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night reaching out to see where Amaranth has gone anymore.

He and Eskel make it down to the town at the foot of the mountains by late afternoon, and Amaranth is sitting out in front of the inn with the innkeeper’s wife, shelling peas and laughing. Eskel gives Geralt a _look_ , and mutters, “ _That’s_ Amaranth the Undying?”

“Just Amaranth,” Geralt growls back.

“Fine, fine,” Eskel says, and then they get close enough for Amaranth to spot them, and she sets aside her bowl of shelled peas and rises and comes towards them at a trot, beaming brighter than the wan spring sun.

“Geralt!” she says when she’s close enough, and Geralt gives in to his own slightly baser instincts and opens his arms. She comes right into them, wrapping her own arms around his waist, and he buries his nose in her hair and inhales lavender-and-sage and happiness, uncomplicated and sweet.

“ _Aww_ ,” says Eskel. Geralt frees one arm from the embrace and whacks his fellow witcher on the shoulder. Amaranth laughs against his chest.

“This must be Eskel, then,” she says, pulling away a little. Geralt wraps an arm around her shoulders. He wants her close enough to hear her heartbeat, to fill his senses with lavender and sage, at least for a little while longer. She doesn’t seem to mind; indeed, she shifts a little closer even as she holds out a hand to Eskel. “I’m Amaranth.”

Eskel bows elaborately over her hand, and grins. “Geralt has told me almost nothing about you, because he’s a taciturn bastard, but what he _has_ told me is delightful.”

Amaranth chuckles. “Well, I think he mentioned your name a couple times, but as you say, he isn’t much for long conversations. I, on the other hand, can talk the hind leg off a mule if I want to, so would you both like to come in and have some ale, and we can get to know each other a bit?”

“Oh, is that why Thistle’s so grumpy,” Geralt says, and Amaranth snorts with laughter so hard she misses a step. Geralt holds her up easily until she finds her footing again.

“You,” she says to Eskel, “are a good influence on him. Three months with you and he’s telling _jokes_ , no less!”

Eskel claps a hand to his chest. “A good influence? Me? What have I done that you would insult me so?”

Geralt shakes his head and sighs. At least this is better than the two of them hating each other on sight.

They get the horses stabled, and Amaranth finds them a table in the back of the inn, where both Geralt and Eskel can put their backs to the wall, and the serving girl - who bears such a strong resemblance to the innkeeper’s wife that she _must_ be her daughter - brings over three mugs of ale and a bright grin for Amaranth, which Amaranth returns.

“So,” Eskel says, quietly enough that no one else in the inn can hear. “Geralt really _didn’t_ tell me much about you, but he did tell me who you were.”

Amaranth goes very still, and the grin slides from her face. There’s a sudden tension in the air, like the moment right before a thunderstorm. Geralt winces.

“I don’t have secrets from Eskel,” he says awkwardly. “Never have.”

“I see,” Amaranth says, and gives Eskel a long, unreadable look. Eskel shakes his head.

“I won’t tell anyone,” he promises. “Geralt’s secrets are mine, and mine are his; but it goes no further than me.”

Amaranth considers that for a long, long moment, and the feeling like there’s about to be a thunderstorm eases away to nothing. “I wish you’d warned me,” she says finally to Geralt. “But it is what it is; and Geralt trusts you,” she adds to Eskel, “so I can hardly do less.”

Eskel leans back against the wall with a sigh. “Well, that went better than I thought it might.”

Amaranth crooks an eyebrow at him. “I don’t smite people anymore,” she says dryly. “Or at least, not without a _really_ good reason.”

“Thank you for not smiting Eskel,” Geralt says. “Or me.”

Amaranth shakes her head. “And where would I get another traveling companion if I smote you, hm? Much less one who would put up with Thistle.”

“He _did_ mention your mule bit him,” Eskel says.

Amaranth sighs dramatically. “When I bought that mule,” she says, “the seller assured me he was as gentle as a young lamb, with a gait so steady a child could sleep while riding, and enough stamina to walk all day without stopping. To be perfectly fair, Thistle _does_ have a very steady gait, and quite good endurance; but I maintain that if you have to drug the poor beast half-senseless to keep it from biting, it doesn’t _actually_ have a good temper.”

Eskel laughs. Geralt settles back to savor his ale and listen to his oldest and newest friends grow accustomed to each other.

*

After a few hours, the inn fills up with what Geralt thinks must be nearly a third of the village - far more than he expected to see on an utterly ordinary day. Amaranth grins and stands. “Time for me to earn my keep,” she says. “I’ll have Elly bring you out some stew - venison today, I think.”

“Sounds good to me,” Eskel says, and Geralt nods.

Amaranth walks over to an empty chair on the hearth and settles into it, and the rest of the inn’s customers hush, turning to look at her expectantly. Amaranth nods to them all.

“Hail, friends, and welcome to the last night of my tale, for tomorrow I shall be on the road again. When last we left our heroes, the great explorer Sinbad had been locked in an iron-banded chest, and the chest carried off by a mighty roc, a bird larger than mountains…”

Geralt finds himself drawn in, again, by the skill of her storytelling. Apparently this is one of a linked series of tales, and one by one she finishes them, until finally, as the town clock strikes ten, she sits back and says, “And they lived happily all their years; and if they have not died, then they are living there still.”

There’s a brief silence, and then enthusiastic applause, and the hearthstone in front of Amaranth is showered with copper coins. Eskel grunts in astonishment. “She’s _good_.”

Geralt nods.

Amaranth rejoins them, slumping into her seat with a sigh and draining the mug of ale the cheerful serving girl plunks down in front of her in three long swallows. “Can I get a bowl of stew, Elly?”

“Course you can,” Elly says, and brings it over with another mug of ale; Amaranth nearly inhales it, she eats so fast. Elly looks Eskel and Geralt over and brings _them_ bowls, too, and a witcher can always eat, even if they’ve already had quite a good dinner.

“So,” Amaranth says once she’s mopped her bowl clean, and takes a sip of her ale. “I’ve a room for one more night; shall I bespeak one for you, or two?”

Eskel glances at Geralt, and Geralt hesitates. He probably _should_ say two; they’re not in Kaer Morhen anymore. But giving up a last night of sleeping next to Eskel is an unpleasant thought, and so is giving up a night of sleeping with Amaranth in his arms, filling the air with lavender and sage and contentment. He doesn’t want to choose between them...but there’s no way he can have both, is there?

Eskel’s glance turns into a thoughtful look, and then Eskel says to Amaranth, “How big’s the bed in your room?”

Amaranth hums. “Could fit three, if they’re all friendly.”

“Well, you and I are definitely friendly...don’t know about Geralt, though,” Eskel says, and laughs when Geralt growls. “Come on, White Wolf; one more night in a good bed before we’re back on the Path.”

Amaranth stands and leads the way up to the inn’s attic room - not, clearly, the best room in the house, but warm enough from the chimney running through it, and clean, with a bed that is, in fact, large enough for three if they’re willing to curl together like spoons in a drawer rather than sprawling out.

Geralt is honestly feeling a little dazed. It feels like he’s spent the evening watching two halves of his life collide - his life on the road with Amaranth, his life in Kaer Morhen with Eskel - and instead of clashing, they’ve just...meshed, quietly and easily, like a sword sliding into a perfectly-made sheath. Like a silver sword and a steel sword, strapped crossways across his back, neither sufficient alone but both utterly necessary.

“You’d better take the far side,” Eskel says, and Amaranth nods and takes off her outer tunic and her boots and slides in to the far side of the bed, and Geralt takes off his swords and his boots and his armor and sinks down beside her, and Eskel takes the outside. Geralt curls around Amaranth and tucks his nose into her hair, and she makes a soft contented sound and relaxes bonelessly against him, and Eskel curls himself around Geralt and tugs the blankets up over them and puts an arm around Geralt’s waist, and it’s…

Well, the only way this could be better is if they were all in Kaer Morhen, or behind Amaranth’s camp wards, and Geralt could completely let down his guard.

*

The next morning, Geralt is saddling Roach when he hears Eskel, out in the inn yard, voice so low he _has_ to think Geralt _can’t_ hear, say, “You’ll look after him, won’t you?”

Amaranth replies, just as quietly, “He’s a grown witcher; he looks after himself.”

“Yes,” Eskel says. “But he’s on the Path, and we both know witchers don’t tend to die in bed.”

There’s a brief pause, and then Amaranth says, “While there is breath left in me, I will not let him die, save by his own desire.”

Geralt suppresses a grunt, feeling as though he’s just been punched in the gut. Roach noses at him worriedly.

Eskel sounds almost as taken aback as Geralt feels. “That’s...more than I asked for.”

“Do you think I have so many true friends that I can afford to lose one?” Amaranth asks, and the ancient sorrow in her voice is clear as blown glass.

And Eskel - solid Eskel, Eskel who has been Geralt’s rock since they were children playing at being heroes - says, softly, “No, I suppose not. But now you have two, because any true friend of Geralt’s is a friend of mine.”

Amaranth breathes a very soft laugh. “What’s Geralt’s is yours, hey? Well then, my friend, give me leave to place a mark on you.”

“What will it do?” Eskel asks, and Geralt moves silently to peer out the door of the stable and see Eskel already holding his hand out fearlessly.

“It will let me find you,” Amaranth says, touching her fingers to Eskel’s briefly. “And it will tell me if you are in true danger of death. What I promised Geralt, then, I promise you: I will use no magic on you without your leave, but I ask that you give me leave _now_ , to heal you if you are on death’s door.”

“Done,” Eskel says at once.

Geralt pads back to Roach’s stall. He has no idea what to do with _any_ of that.

*

Eskel goes off south, and Geralt goes west with Amaranth beside him. She seems perfectly content to be on the road again, and Thistle is as good-tempered as the mule ever gets. Geralt glances over at her every few minutes, trying to figure out what he’s feeling.

_I know what witchers are: Protectors. The world would be a poorer place without you in it. While there is breath left in me, I will not let him die._

What the _fuck_ is he supposed to do with that? This was _not_ covered in training. ‘What to do when the most powerful sorceress in the world claims you as her truest friend’ wasn’t something Vesemir ever talked about.

Why _him_? Fuck, why not _Eskel_ , who is frankly more personable and less disconcerting than Geralt is, who is only a hair slower and weaker, who is sensible and calm and fairly handsome? What if Amaranth would _prefer_ to be traveling with Eskel, who can jest and converse with far more ease?

They make camp as easily as they did last autumn, falling into the old routine without speaking, and Geralt settles by the fire and takes his bowl of soup and blurts out, “Would you rather travel with Eskel?”

Amaranth puts her soup spoon down and gives him a blank, baffled stare. “No,” she says after a moment. “If I had wanted to travel with Eskel, I’d be a day’s ride south by now.”

“Why?” Geralt asks, and when she still looks baffled, “Why _me_?”

“Ah,” Amaranth says. “You aren’t going to just take ‘I like your company’ as an explanation, are you?”

Geralt shakes his head. Amaranth sighs.

“Alright,” she says. “Well. Witchers can smell fear, right?”

Geralt nods. “It’s sour,” he says.

“Right, well, some sorceresses can sense emotions. I’m not particularly skilled at it: I can only sense strong emotions, and only when they’re directed at _me_.” She grimaces. “For more than two hundred years, everyone who talked to me - _everyone_ , Geralt - had one of two dominant emotions: fear, or greed.”

Geralt hums confusion.

“For my power,” Amaranth says. “Most people, you tell them there’s an absurdly powerful sorceress, and they start thinking about how to _control_ her. What they could do with her power, if they could command it. And if you can’t have the _power_ , the next best thing is to have the _sorceress_. Every single person, for two hundred years, was either terrified of me or wanted to _own_ me - or both. _Often_ both.”

Geralt grimaces. That sounds...really, really unpleasant. It’s bad enough smelling people’s fear; at least he has the company of his fellow witchers during the winters, and there are long stretches where he’s out on the road and not in anyone’s company but his own - and these days Amaranth’s - and there’s no fear-scent at all. But sorceresses are political creatures; Amaranth probably didn’t get long days to herself very often. Possibly never.

“So I left,” Amaranth says softly, staring into the fire. “I became a traveling storyteller, and I became invisible. People don’t really _look_ at a traveling tale-spinner; their eyes just skate over me unless I’m actually telling a story. It’s quite nice being invisible after so long being feared, actually, but it does get wearing after a while. And the people who _do_ notice me, as often as not, are...well, you know what sort of dangers there are for a woman traveling alone.”

Geralt nods. He knows. He stops that sort of thing when he can, often just by looming ominously at whichever bastard is making himself obnoxious, but he knows perfectly well that a woman traveling alone is in danger of being attacked pretty much any time she’s around other humans. Amaranth can, of course, protect herself, but he still doesn’t like the thought of anyone _trying_ to assault her. No one has since she started traveling with him. Just as well, really; getting a reputation for breaking people’s necks wouldn’t really cause people to fear him _less_.

“So all my life, pretty much, everyone has either feared me or wanted to control me, or failed to notice me at all. And then...you. You’ve never feared me; well, you’re a witcher, as far as I know you _can’t_ feel fear.”

Geralt nods; it’s burnt out of them during the Trial of the Grasses. Fear isn’t useful to a witcher. He’s almost forgotten how it feels.

“And then you found out who I am, and you...you didn’t get greedy. As far as I can tell, you’ve never even _thought_ about the fact that my powers could be useful to you, in anything more than warding the camp and occasionally providing rain-shades and starting fires. You _see_ me, but you neither fear me nor want to own me. Geralt, as far as I can tell, that makes you fucking _unique_.”

“Eskel,” Geralt says hesitantly.

“Eskel is a very nice man, and I enjoyed his company, but he _was_ thinking about it. How much use a pet sorceress could be. He got over it pretty fast, I’ll give him that, and he cares far more about you than he does about gaining power or prestige, but he _did_ think about it.”

Geralt blinks at her. She’s still staring into the fire, not looking at him, and there’s old sorrow etched on her face, bleaker than he’s ever seen her look before. Slowly, he shifts around until he’s sitting beside her, and wraps an arm around her shoulders, ready to pull away if it seems unwelcome. She leans against him with a sigh that seems to come from the depths of her soul, and rests her head against his shoulder.

“I like Eskel well enough, but I would rather travel with you than with anyone else in the world, Geralt of Rivia,” she says quietly.

Geralt rests his cheek on the top of her head, breathing in lavender and sage. “Alright,” he says, just as softly. “I - I like your company. You smell good. You’ve never feared me. And I’ll never try to own you.”

Amaranth chuckles, a little huff of breath. “It isn’t in you to try, I don’t think,” she says. “Stop worrying I’d rather be with Eskel.”

Geralt hums agreement, and tucks Amaranth a little closer to his side. He doesn’t plan to let go of her until she damn well wants to leave.

*

It does something weird in Geralt’s head, the idea that someone has chosen _him_ , out of everyone in the world, because of _who he is_. He’s not sure that’s ever been the case before. The training masters at Kaer Morhen valued him because he was going to be a good witcher - because he could take more mutagens, could become faster and stronger even than his fellows. Townspeople, when they want him at all, don’t want _him_ , they want his swords and his skills. The occasional people who want him in their beds like his strength and his golden eyes and sometimes even his scars, and don’t give a damn about the person behind the eyes. And Eskel...Geralt and Eskel have belonged to each other since they were too young to know what that meant. It’s not a _choice_ , any more than _breathing_ is a choice. Geralt is Eskel’s and Eskel is Geralt’s, and that’s all there is to it.

But Amaranth has _chosen_ him, not because of his strength or his skills or even his _looks_ , but because...because of who he _is_.

That’s so baffling as to be almost incomprehensible.

There wasn’t a shred of a lie in her scent, though, and he can’t come up with any explanation of her willingness to be his traveling companion that makes _more_ sense than her own words. He’s heard of sorceresses liking to have pet witchers around, keeping them as bodyguards and fucktoys, but Amaranth has literally never asked anything of him for _herself_ that he can remember. She didn’t even really ask him to keep her _secret_ , though aside from Eskel, Geralt plans on never telling anyone in the world.

So. Amaranth genuinely likes him - prefers his company to anyone else in the world. And Geralt couldn’t sleep peacefully even in Kaer Morhen, even with Eskel in his arms, without her scent and heartbeat beside him.

He’s not entirely sure what love is. It’s not something that came up much in Kaer Morhen. Some of the older witchers claim that being a witcher means you have _all_ your emotions stripped from you, but Geralt’s been furious and overjoyed and irritated and lustful, which are all emotions, so he’s guessing it was just fear, or maybe fear and despair - witchers don’t seem to have whatever it is, in humans, that makes them give up sometimes if the odds seem too long. A witcher will keep fighting until he dies, regardless of the impossibility of victory.

Maybe what he and Eskel have is love, but if so, it’s not much like what he’s observed of normal humans in relationships. For one thing, they spend nine months in every year apart. And it’s...it’s not the sort of thing in Amaranth’s stories, where one lover swears by the moon to be true forever and the other fights off hordes of enemies for the right to win their true love, or what have you. It’s not a _choice_. They’re just...whatever they are, and always have been.

But with Amaranth...Geralt isn’t sure what you call it when you can’t sleep well without a certain person beside you, when you prefer her company to almost anyone else’s - and he does, being around Amaranth is _restful_ in an odd sort of way, like he doesn’t have to understand her to know that she’ll always be doing the sensible thing, always have his back - when you like looking at someone because the way the firelight limns her hair is fascinating and the way the sunlight brightens her eyes is beautiful, when making her smile with a dry joke is the best reason to _tell_ a joke you’ve ever found, when you kind of want to hunt down everyone who ever looked at that person and wanted to _own_ her and punch them very hard in the mouth -

He’s not sure what you call that, but he thinks it might be love.

Not, of course, that he knows what to _do_ about that. So he does what he does best: he says nothing at all.

*

Geralt kills a manticore for the next village, and gets a pretty decent purse for it. Amaranth spends three nights telling stories in the second-best inn of a fairly large town, and after the first night almost nobody gives Geralt any odd looks, even though there’s nothing here for a witcher to kill, because he’s so clearly with Amaranth, and apparently everyone’s decided to assume that a talented traveling storyteller can somehow afford to hire a witcher as her bodyguard. It’s weirdly refreshing.

And then they move on, and the next village has a drowner problem, so Geralt takes care of that, and takes a day to restock his potions in the fairly good apothecary’s workshop, and around dusk a boy shows up panting from the next town north, who have apparently heard there’s a witcher and have what sounds from the boy’s rather garbled explanation like a nesting pair of cockatrices, so the next morning they head north to deal with _that_ …

And what with one thing and another, three months pass.

Geralt accumulates a couple of new scars, though none of them are as bad as they _could_ be, because every time he limps in bleeding from one mishap or another, Amaranth is there, smelling worried but with steady hands, to stitch him up and slather salve on him and keep watch while he sleeps. He sleeps curled around Amaranth every night he’s _not_ wounded, her scent filling the air and her heartbeat a steady cadence that lulls him easily into aimless, peaceful dreams.

They don’t talk much while they’re traveling, but it’s a companionable sort of silence; and after a while Geralt discovers that he _is_ talking a little more, dry jokes about some mishap or other, pointing out a particularly interesting bit of scenery, even describing the monsters he’s killed or the training program at Kaer Morhen, or the little adventures he’s had with Eskel. And Amaranth reciprocates. Geralt learns more than he really wanted to about the really _nasty_ internal politics of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers, and a fair bit about sorcerous training, which is apparently necessary to keep young mages from going _mad_ but also isn’t much kinder than witcher training, in its own way. Less being dumped in the middle of nowhere and expected to make it back to Kaer Morhen with nothing more than your wits, more chance of getting something wrong and having your soul eaten by a demon. She also mentions having to spend _years_ learning to understand your own soul and motivations so well it hurts, and _that_ sounds like hell to Geralt. Give him a rabid manticore any day.

Still, it’s...weirdly nice to have company who will cheerfully listen to anything Geralt _wants_ to say, but not ask for anything more; and he likes listening to Amaranth talk. More so when she’s telling him about her own life than when she’s telling stories in the inns, actually. He tucks every little scrap of information away like a dragon’s hoard, keeping it in the same corner of his mind that has _I know what witchers are: Protectors_ and _The world would be a poorer place without you in it_ and _While there is breath left in me, I will not let him die_ preserved like tiny gems, priceless and shining.

She likes honey and hates mashed turnips. She likes the scents of sage and lavender, but it’s the soap scent she prefers because of an old book she found once full of the meanings of flowers, that she read cover to cover until she’d almost memorized it and then decided that having a scent which meant ‘devotion to wisdom’ would be a quiet fuck-you to all the people who wanted her to be their tool or their toy...and the second meaning of lavender is ‘distrust,’ and she has never truly _trusted_ anyone until Geralt came along. She likes to sleep in, if she can, but she’s fully awake as soon as her eyes open properly, and can’t just roll over and go back to sleep the way Geralt can. She likes mead but hates almost any other form of real alcohol, and turns down innkeepers who want to give her the best ale in the house in favor of small beer or the really weak ale they keep around for people who just come in for lunch and have to go out and get back to work afterwards. She likes cats, but can’t figure out how to keep one when she’s constantly traveling, so contents herself with feeding the stable-cats at each inn tidbits and scritching them behind the ears. She learned to sew because it was something she could do in quiet moments, and then when she was done there would be something mended, or made, or just prettier, and it was _finished_ , and she could be proud of having done it. She can’t do anything more complicated than a simple braid on her own hair, but now and again when a small child happens to ask, she can put truly intricate braids into _their_ hair, crowns and flowers and things that look like works of art. (Geralt hasn’t quite gotten to the point where he’s willing to ask her if she would like to braid _his_ hair, but he can see it coming; sooner or later, he _will_ ask, and he’ll wear whatever she adorns him with, and be happy to do so.) She’s good at being polite to people and acting friendly, even when she doesn’t like them much, but she only really _relaxes_ out on the road with Geralt, or safe behind a camp’s wards, wrapped up in his arms.

...And it’s weirdly _satisfying_ , actually, to know that she feels safe with him. Not just that she doesn’t _fear_ him, but that having him around makes her _more_ comfortable. She’s perfectly capable of looking after herself and they both know it, but there’s something very pleasing about her trusting him to protect her _anyway_.

Geralt’s still not sure what love is, but he’s starting to think trusting and being trusted is _definitely_ an important part.


	5. Summer

Geralt did not quite believe the villagers when they asked him to kill a giant centipede - he was really kind of _hoping_ they were joking, actually - but the monster that rises out of the long grass of a meadow that ought to be full of sheep is, in point of fact, an enormous centipede, twelve feet long if it’s an inch.

“Silver or steel?” he asks it, and decides to try both, because _one_ of them ought to work, right?

The fucking thing is _fast_ , and definitely poisonous, and likes to try to wind itself _around_ him, which is frankly disgusting, and also its back armor is thick enough that even silver doesn’t make much of a dent, but eventually Geralt manages to grab it by the fangs as it wraps itself around him and carve it open up the stomach. It twitches a lot while it dies, and Geralt ends up _covered_ in giant centipede guts, but it _does_ die, and he cuts off one of the fangs for proof and then lights the body on fire just to make sure it doesn’t decide to regenerate.

They’re a day’s travel outside the village, well up into the sheepherding hills, and Amaranth has made camp about an hour’s walk away, next to a little stream-fed lake, behind enough wards that Geralt felt pretty calm about leaving her there while he went off to kill a monster. He smells really _impressively_ foul by the time he gets back to camp, since the giant centipede guts have sort of baked on in the sun, and Amaranth comes out of camp to greet him, comes close enough to get a whiff, and stops dead, pointing at the lake. “Get in; I’ll bring you the soap.”

Geralt nods meekly and heads for the lake. He’s mostly gotten inured to the smell in the last hour, but getting this gunk off him is _definitely_ a high priority. And the cool water feels really nice after fighting and hiking in the full sun. Amaranth joins him after a few minutes, stacking a few pieces of toweling on a broad rock near the shore and tossing a cake of soap to him, and Geralt lathers up and rinses...several times.

“It’s still all in your hair,” Amaranth says. “Fuck it, sit down, I’ll come scrub it out for you.”

Geralt sits down on the pebbly lake-bottom as ordered, and Amaranth comes wading in behind him after a moment and takes the soap and starts attacking his hair. She’s surprisingly gentle about it, actually, scrubbing one section at a time and pouring water over his head so carefully it never runs down into his eyes, and Geralt closes his eyes and basks. He’s warm from the sun, the water’s actually a perfect temperature, he’s pleasantly tired from his fight with the giant centipede, Amaranth’s fingers feel _really nice_ combing through his hair, and the smell of lavender and sage is slowly taking the place of giant centipede stink.

“Right, I think that’s done,” Amaranth says quietly. “Duck under and sluice off, and I’ll see if I got it all.”

Geralt slides down under the water easily and reaches up to scrub his hands through his hair, then stands and turns, and -

Amaranth is kneeling in the water watching him, as naked as he is, hair a tangle around her shoulders, and she smells of lavender-and-sage and _lust_ , and she’s looking at him with frank appreciation. She is, he thinks, still not the most beautiful woman in the world, but she is _definitely_ the most appealing. He could stand here looking at her for quite a long time, and not get tired of the sight. After a moment, though, she stands, and turns to make her way towards the shore. Geralt swallows hard and says, “Wait.”

Amaranth turns back. Fuck, Geralt is _bad_ at words; he doesn’t quite know how to say this. He doesn’t want a quick tumble, a few moments of mindless pleasure that he could get at any whorehouse. He’s pretty sure she doesn’t, either.

Oh, fuck it; he’s never been good at words, but Amaranth knows that. Geralt steps forward, moving slowly so she can back away if she wants to, and cups her face in both hands, and bends his head to kiss her, as softly and carefully as he can.

Amaranth is utterly still for one long, worrisome moment, and then both of her arms go around his neck and she’s kissing back with a sort of wild abandon Geralt’s never actually seen from her before. Geralt gets an arm around her waist and picks her up, carrying her out of the water, past their discarded clothes and towards the camp. Amaranth winds her legs around his waist and makes _absolutely no objection_ to being carried.

Geralt’s always been better with body language anyway.

He lays her out on their doubled bedrolls, safe within the wards of their camp, and just _looks_ at her for a long moment, feasting his eyes. Amaranth stares back at him with her pupils blown wide, barely a ring of emerald remaining around the black. “Fuck,” she breathes. “Feels like you want to _devour_ me.”

“I do,” Geralt rumbles.

“Oh _fuck_ , Geralt,” Amaranth gasps, and then, very deliberately, tips her head back to bare her throat. “White wolf of the mountains, do with me as you will.”

Geralt growls and stretches over her to take her mouth in a kiss, deep and hungry, and Amaranth laces both hands through his hair and gives back just as good as she gets, biting at his lips and moaning. She smells so _good_ , lavender and sage and lust so thick and sweet Geralt can _taste_ it.

He kisses his way down that offered throat, licks, bites so gently it will not leave even the shadow of a bruise - there is no place for pain here - and Amaranth’s moans are music far sweeter than singing. Her breasts are small, barely large enough to fill his palms, but he discovers when he licks at them that they are _gloriously_ sensitive, and she shudders beneath him and cries out in pleasure, hands tightening in his hair. There might be words in the cries, but none of them are any sort of denial, and Geralt is half-feral with the sound and smell of her, the way she arches under him, the taste of her skin clean and salt-sweet on his tongue.

He licks and sucks and bites - gently, so gently, but every graze of his teeth wrings a moan from her and sends the lust-smell spiraling higher, so he does it again and again, until Amaranth goes suddenly still below him and then _shudders_ , peaking with a cry that rings from the wards, and falls back gasping against the bedrolls.

And that is too much - far too much - for Geralt’s tenuous control; he sits back on his heels and gets a hand on his prick, and two quick strokes having him coming, striping her pale skin with white spend. And oh _fuck_ , the scent of it, lavender and sage and lust and _him_ , all mixed together into something intoxicating and glorious that Geralt wants to smell every day forever.

Amaranth huffs a breathless laugh. “Do I smell like you, then?”

“You smell like _mine_ ,” Geralt growls, and even through the haze of lust he realizes that might not be the best choice of words - Amaranth does not want to be _owned_ -

But she says, softly, “And what will you do with your Amaranth, then?”

And Geralt, lust-drunk enough not to guard his tongue, blurts, “Love her.”

Amaranth’s eyes go very wide, and through the lust-smell there is a spike of vivid, bright-citrus _joy_. “Oh,” she says, and, “Geralt,” and, “ _yes_.”

Geralt falls on her _ravenously_ , kisses her fiercely, taste of lust and joy on their tongues, and then he makes his way back down her body, licking the taste of his own spend from her skin, and Amaranth moans and shivers beneath him and gets her hands back in his hair and _lets_ him. He licks his way down over the gentle curve of her belly and the creases of her hips and her legs fall open for him without hesitation. The skin of her inner thighs is soft as rose-petals, and when Geralt rubs his cheek against them, Amaranth whimpers and spreads them wider.

The smell of her desire is strongest here, and Geralt - well, he hasn’t done this very often; it doesn’t come up much with whores, and of course with Eskel there’s different body parts involved, but he dives in without hesitation, figuring enthusiasm will probably make up for any lack of skill, and Amaranth certainly doesn’t seem to mind, if the sweet cries rising from her throat and the way her thighs go tight around his ears to keep him in place are any indication. She tastes _wonderful_ , and Geralt wants to drown himself in the scent of her, wants to stay here forever if she’s going to keep smelling like that, and tasting like this, and making such beautiful sounds.

She peaks again under his tongue, arching up and shuddering so hard he has to pull away, and lies there gasping, lips bitten red, hair a tangled mess beneath her, more beautiful than anything Geralt has ever seen before.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, and Amaranth says, “Please!”

Geralt gathers her up into his lap, her legs sprawled out on either side of his, and she braces her hands on his shoulders and holds on tight enough to bruise any ordinary human as he lowers her inch by slow inch onto his prick. She moans when their hips finally meet, and her head falls back, and Geralt kisses her bared throat and wraps his hands around her waist - slender enough that his fingers almost meet - and lifts her, as slowly as he can bear, drawing this out for both of their pleasures.

The second stroke is faster, and when their hips meet this time Amaranth _snarls_ and takes one hand off his shoulder to tangle in his hair and drag his lips to hers, kisses him hard and fierce and sweet, and slow is just not going to work anymore.

Geralt bears her down onto the bedrolls, and Amaranth wraps her legs around his hips and moans into his mouth, and they are moving together, straining against each other, and everything smells like lust and sweat and joy, like sword oil and lavender and sage.

Geralt shifts his weight a little and Amaranth yelps and her fingers dig harder into his shoulder, so he does it again, and again, and she _wails_ against his lips and peaks a third time, and the clench and flutter of her around his prick is enough to bring him over too, grinding down against her and gasping against the curve of her throat, the last shuddering waves of pleasure leaving him almost too wrung out to keep from toppling onto her. He manages to brace himself on the bedrolls, elbows beside her shoulders, and Amaranth strokes a hand through his hair and smiles up at him, smelling sated and joyful and _his_.

“Next time,” he says, once his heartrate has dropped back to something a little more normal, and he’s caught his breath, “I’m going to fuck you _first_ , then lick you clean.”

Amaranth swallows hard. “I shall look forward to it.”

Geralt grins and sags to the bedroll beside her, and Amaranth rolls onto her side and wraps a leg around his waist, and they end up in a sort of tangle of limbs, so close they’re sharing breath, neither of them willing to let go.

Eventually, though, Amaranth breathes a tiny laugh against Geralt’s throat and says, “I think we need another bath.”

Geralt would be perfectly happy for Amaranth to keep smelling like she’s _his_ for the next...ever, but he does have to admit they’re both stickier than is ideal, and also their clothing is still down by the lake, as are his _swords_ , so they get up and go rinse off, and he spends a few minutes beating his clothing with a rock underwater to get most of the centipede guts off, and then it’s about time to figure out dinner anyhow.

And after they’ve eaten and cleaned up, they curl up together, Amaranth tucked against him as always, and Geralt realizes suddenly: this is how it’s going to work. They’re still going to travel from town to town, talking or not talking as the urge takes them, still going to set up camp in easy coordination, still going to sleep spooned together with lavender-and-sage filling the air, but now - now whenever he wants to, whenever _she_ wants to, they can kiss, and touch, and fuck.

So, what they already had, but _better_.

“I am a lucky bastard of a witcher,” he murmurs in Amaranth’s ear, and she laughs quietly.

“Well, I’m feeling pretty lucky myself,” she says. And then she squirms around so she’s facing him and adds, “I don’t think I said it earlier. I do love you, Geralt.”

“I know,” Geralt says, and when she gives him a slightly confused look, explains, “I heard you and Eskel. In the inn-yard.”

“In the - three months ago?” Geralt hums. Amaranth’s eyes narrow. “What _exactly_ did you hear?”

Geralt says, quietly, “While there is breath left in me, I will not let him die.”

“Ah,” Amaranth says. “Yes. I suppose as declarations of love go, that’s a pretty...solid one.”

Geralt cups her cheek in one hand, rubs his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’ve never asked me to defend you,” he says. “But I will, if you need it. While there is breath left in me.”

“Fuck,” Amaranth says, and kisses him gently. “How about we face threats _together_ , and neither of us dies?”

“Sounds good,” Geralt agrees. “Not monsters, though. I can handle those.”

“Yes, I know, White Wolf,” Amaranth says, and they are quiet for a long moment. Finally she says, very softly, “It’s dangerous for a sorceress to love.”

“Why?” Geralt asks. He doesn’t _think_ he’s heard anything about sorceresses accidentally setting their lovers on fire, or anything like that.

“Because love is a leash,” Amaranth says. “Tell me, Geralt, if you could have anything in the world - anything, literally, the sky is the limit - what would you want?”

Geralt considers it carefully, because it seems important to her. “You and Eskel,” he says finally, “and a decent purse after every monster, and winters in - someplace warm, maybe, but someplace that’s as safe as Kaer Morhen is. And fewer people glaring at me for no reason.”

Amaranth laughs, but it sounds almost painful. “Fuck,” she says when she finally stops laughing. “You must never, ever doubt that I love you, Geralt of Rivia.”

“Alright,” Geralt says, increasingly confused by this whole conversation.

“You do realize you could have said you wanted to be a king - fuck it, an emperor,” Amaranth says. “You could have asked for endless riches, for beautiful people flinging themselves at you, for fame. And you want - you want to do your job, and be paid fairly for it, and spend peaceful winters with your lovers.” She tucks her head under his chin, and Geralt can smell that she is _crying_ , and he does not understand.

“Why the fuck would I want to be an emperor?” he says. “I would be fucking terrible at it.”

Amaranth gives a little hiccuping sob, and Geralt rubs her back because he can’t think of anything else to do, and stares in bafflement at the shadows of the trees against the stars. Finally she stops crying, and sniffles a little, and Geralt reaches over and grabs his discarded shirt and hands it to her to wipe her face. She half sits up to toss it away when she’s done, and looks down at him in the light of the half-moon. He doesn’t know what she can see; he can see _her_ almost as well as in daylight, pale skin and dark hair and startling emerald eyes.

“Love is a leash,” she says, looking down at him with some unreadable expression in her eyes. “That’s what we’re taught - maybe not deliberately, but we learn it all the same, the young sorceresses. We see our elders fall in love, and put that leash into their lovers’ hands, and their lovers - use them. Because most of us, we’re so damned _lonely_ that we’d do almost anything for the promise - fuck, the _potential_ \- that someone will love us. But -” she reaches out to trace his cheekbone with gentle fingers, brushes his hair back behind his ear, trails her hand down his throat to rest over his heart. “But I have put the leash in your hand, and you have let it go,” she says, softly, marveling. “You know who I am. You know what I could give you. And all you want is - is to be a witcher, and to have your lovers beside you. I _knew_ that, but I don’t think I really _believed_ it until now.”

“I like the camp wards; you can keep doing that,” Geralt says, for lack of any better idea, and Amaranth laughs, and the laughter turns to weeping again, and she curls up in his arms and buries her face against his chest and clings to him until she’s cried herself out.

“Yes, I’ll keep setting the camp wards,” she says at last, much later, and lifts her face to kiss him, her lips tasting of salt, and then shifts around so her back is against his chest and he can tuck his nose against the part of her hair, and falls asleep in his arms.

*

In the morning, they head back to the village that gave Geralt the giant centipede job, and he turns the fang over to the mayor and accepts his purse, and since it’s late afternoon and the villagers _are_ feeling rather grateful, they spend the night in the rather small inn - are, in fact, given the _only_ guest room - and Amaranth tells stories late into the evening to a rapt audience of what must be the entire village.

The last tale she tells, as always, is of the White Wolf, and Geralt, in the corner, swallows hard when she looks up in the middle of describing his battle against a basilisk and _smiles_ at him, sweet and - and loving.

Geralt wants to kiss her. And, he realizes with rising joy, as soon as she finishes this story, the last story of the night, he _can_. He can take her up to the little guest room and kiss her as much as he likes, tonight and every night for the foreseeable future, and fuck - he could probably kiss her in the _common room_ , too, could curl an arm around her and make it clear to anyone who wants to look that she’s his, and he’s hers, and everyone else can just fuck right off.

He _doesn’t_ , because he’s not sure if Amaranth would like that, but he _does_ kiss her quite thoroughly before they fall asleep, curled together in the rickety little bed, and she kisses back like she’s starving for it, like she’s never wanted anything else as much as she wants _him_.


	6. Autumn

They turn back towards Kaer Morhen at midsummer, and Geralt starts to notice a new thread of rumors in the inns. He’s used to the people whispering _White Wolf_ in voices quiet enough that they think he can’t hear, and he’s used to overhearing any number of half-true or just plain ridiculous theories about witchers - his favorite might be the one he heard some years ago, claiming that just as witchers all have cats’ eyes, they’ve also got cats’ _pricks_ , and are covered in spines. That one was so absurd he had to go out to the stable and laugh against Roach’s shoulder for a while, while the patient mare eyed him dubiously.

But now he’s starting to hear murmurs about _that storyteller what travels with the witcher_ , usually in baffled tones, as though the speaker doesn’t quite understand why anyone would _choose_ to travel with a witcher. And in a rather larger town, as Geralt is getting Roach and Thistle untacked in the stable, he hears one of the inn’s serving girls approach Amaranth out in the yard and say, hesitantly, “You’re - you’re the witcher’s storyteller?”

“Suppose that’s accurate enough,” Amaranth says.

The girl swallows hard, and drops her voice enough that Geralt actually has to strain to hear it. “Do - do you need help getting away from him? My ma runs the inn - we’ve helped girls get away from men before -”

Amaranth says, gently, “No, dear, I don’t need saving.”

“You _don’t_?” the girl squeaks.

“Not even a little bit, though it’s to your credit that you asked, and I thank you for it,” Amaranth says. “But you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, I think. Geralt would rather cut his own hand off than do me harm.”

That’s...not inaccurate. _Eskel_ , Geralt can brawl with, can bruise and bloody safe in the knowledge that Eskel will heal, and will give as good as he gets, and both of them will enjoy themselves immensely. Amaranth can take care of herself - may well be even more dangerous than Geralt is, really - but Geralt cannot imagine actually raising a hand against her.

“But he’s _terrifying_ ,” the girl says.

Amaranth sighs a little. “I’ll grant he’s a bit imposing, yes, what with the swords and the scowl and all.” Geralt can hear the affection in her voice, clear as daylight, and it makes him smile rather foolishly at Roach’s shoulder. “But witchers are made to protect humans, and Geralt even more than most. I am far, far safer with him than with any other man I have ever met.” She pauses, and then adds, “I’d suggest you say hello to him, but he’s as likely to grunt at you as anything, so I’m not sure that would help convince you.”

“Eh, my da just grunts at everyone, too,” the girl says, sounding like she’s trying hard to act normal despite still being badly off-balance. “I think that’s just men.”

“Some men,” Amaranth says, with a laugh lurking under the words. “Though frankly I’d rather have grunting than the sort of sweet-talk some of them try if they think you’re too female to have a brain.”

“Oh _gods_ yes,” says the serving girl. “The ones who think ‘what lovely eyes you have’ means you’ll let ‘em under your skirts! My ma, she warned me about men like _them_.”

“You have a wonderfully sensible mother, and I should like to meet her,” Amaranth says. “Will you show me the way?”

“Oh, sure,” says the serving girl, and the sound of the inn door closing cuts off the rest of whatever they might be saying, and Geralt finishes untacking the animals in a very thoughtful frame of mind.

He’s used to being feared, even if he doesn’t much like it; he just hadn’t realized that anyone would think he was a threat to _Amaranth_. _He_ knows he’d - well, he’d rather cut off a hand than hurt her. It’s never occurred to him that anyone _watching_ them wouldn’t see that as well. But people see what they want to see; he’s known that for years, pretty much ever since he set foot on the Path.

He can’t really imagine trying to be _friendlier_ , even for Amaranth’s sake; he’s never been good at acting, and it _would_ be acting, so it would look fake, and that wouldn’t help at all.

He goes into the inn in the beginnings of a dark and terrible mood, and Amaranth looks up from the table where she’s sitting with someone who must be the serving girl who started this, and smiles at him - that same sweet, loving smile that he’s only started getting since they _finally_ managed to put the final piece into the puzzle that is their relationship - and gestures to the seat beside her, and when he sits down, she leans against him, as she always does when he’s next to her, and he puts an arm around her to keep her close, as _he_ always does -

And the serving girl’s wary expression turns to a sort of baffled delight. “ _Oh_ ,” she says. “I see.”

Amaranth nods, like this makes perfect sense to her, and the girl bounces to her feet and says, “I’ll bring over that meal now, miss Amaranth!” and goes hastening off through the early-evening crowd.

Geralt looks down at Amaranth and raises an eyebrow. Amaranth smiles up at him. “I assume you heard a lot of that, earlier, then?”

Geralt nods. Amaranth’s smile goes a little crooked - rueful and amused, Geralt thinks, in maybe equal measure. “Well, I’m afraid you - you’ve rather got your heart in your eyes when you look at me, these days. I quite like it, but it’s not intimidating in the slightest.”

Geralt considers that as the serving girl comes back with two heaped plates of food - brown bread and mutton and a mess of something involving berries, from the smells - and puts them down with a tentative sort of smile at Geralt. He nods to her, as politely as he can, and to his surprise her smile widens into a true grin and she even bobs a sort of rough curtsey before she’s off again.

“Better than people thinking I’ve got a cat’s prick,” he decides at last, and Amaranth snorts with laughter and would probably fall backwards off the bench save for his arm around her.

“People _think that_?” she demands once she’s gotten the laughter under control a little, and Geralt shrugs and nods, and she’s off again, laughing so hard she ends up sort of draped over his shoulder and sniggering -

And Geralt, glancing around the room, sees that the wary glances he’s been getting have turned into...cautiously friendly ones, for the most part. People are looking at the witcher who has apparently managed to make his perfectly normal-looking companion laugh until she cries, and drawing conclusions that _don’t_ include him being her captor, or a monster, or an emotionless freak.

And Geralt didn’t have to do anything he wouldn’t have anyhow. Well, alright then.

That night Amaranth tells the story of the time the White Wolf got sent to deal with a whole mess of archespores, which is actually a story he told _her_ about a month back, although she tells it rather better than he did; and after the story is over, one little boy comes over and asks if Geralt really does have a scar on his arm from an evil plant monster, and Geralt, somewhat baffled, rolls up his sleeve and shows the boy the paired scars where a poisoned thorn went entirely through his forearm. In moments, he has an entire cluster of small children gathered around him, touching the scars with tiny fingers and making oohing noises, and their parents behind them looking wary but interested and not snatching the children away in horror. Amaranth comes over and stands behind Geralt and puts a hand on his shoulder, warm and reassuring, and Geralt says to the boldest of the small children, “Don’t _you_ go after any archespores. Get a witcher in, or if you can’t find one, find a decent archer and use fire arrows. If I hadn’t been a witcher, this would’ve killed me.”

“Would fire arrows work?” asks what must be the father of the boldest child.

Geralt nods. “It’d take a lot of them, and very good archers. You have to stay far enough away the thorns can’t get you. And you have to find the thorns, and burn them.”

“Huh,” says the man, and then the woman next to him says, “What about - those creepy things you get in the water sometimes, that leave those slime puddles?”

“Drowners,” says Geralt. “They come in nests. Best to get a witcher; they don’t bleed, and they’re _fast_. Silver slows them some.”

“How fast?” someone asks. Geralt thinks about that for a moment, and then he gets up and unslings his swords and hands them to Amaranth for safe-keeping, and goes over to the cleared area in front of the fire, and picks up a couple of fireplace pokers.

“Fast,” he says grimly, and launches into one of the more complicated sword drills, moving fast enough that the pokers blur and whine through the air. By the time he finishes, the room is quiet enough that even his own breathing sounds almost obscenely loud. “Fast enough to get through my guard sometimes,” he says.

Someone in the back of the room whispers, “ _Fuck_ ,” and it breaks the silence; suddenly everyone is talking, exclaiming over his speed or asking questions about monsters or just swearing. Geralt puts the pokers away and goes back over to Amaranth, who hands him his swords and then, smiling a little, goes up on her tiptoes and kisses him on the cheek.

“I do love watching you drill,” she says under the noise of the crowd as they sit down again. Geralt hums and wraps his arm around her again. He’s figured _that_ out. Since the first day they traveled together, she’s watched him drill with immense concentration, and the lust in her scent has spiked every single time. It’s rather flattering, especially given that most other people who have seen him drill - and aren’t witchers - have been scared rather than intrigued. That’s why he used pokers tonight; he was hoping it would look less terrifying without swords.

The hubbub dies down a little after a few minutes, but to Geralt’s surprise, the innkeeper and half a dozen of the town’s notables come over to join him and Amaranth at their table, and the innkeeper says, “We will put you up in the inn for a week, room and board for yourself and your companion and stabling and feed for your horses, if you will instruct us as to the most common monsters: what the signs of their presence are, how dangerous, and what their vulnerabilities.”

Geralt says, “Most of them, I’m going to say you need a witcher.”

“Yes,” says the innkeeper, “but advice like fire arrows against an archespore, or how fast a drowner is - that might be enough to keep us alive until we can _get_ a witcher.”

That’s not a bad point, actually. Geralt glances at Amaranth, who gives an almost imperceptible nod. “Alright, then,” Geralt says. “A week.”

“Thank you,” says the innkeeper.

*

Really there are only two problems with spending a week teaching a small group of very interested townspeople about common types of monsters. The first is that it involves a _lot_ of talking, and Geralt isn’t used to it; his throat is sore by the end of the first day, and Amaranth listens to him croak his dinner order and puts a hand over her mouth to cover a smile and orders “the largest mug of chamomile tea you can make, dear, with a ladle of honey in it.” It doesn’t taste great despite the honey, but it does help. And the serving girl - Molly - brings him another mug of it every night without him even asking, which is a surprising kindness especially from a girl who thought he was some sort of woman-savaging monster the first time she saw him.

The second problem is that Geralt discovers that he doesn’t want to have sex with Amaranth where anyone else can _hear_. Her sounds, her beautiful cries and moans, are _his_ , and he wants to hoard them like a dragon would its treasure. It’s not a problem when they’re traveling, because at least half the time they’re camping, and safe behind Amaranth’s wards in the middle of nowhere, but spending a _week_ in town is, Geralt realizes after about day three, going to be deeply unpleasant.

Amaranth kisses him, that third night, with a heat in it that - on the road - would lead almost instantly to him getting them both naked as quickly as possible and then doing his absolute best to make her scream with pleasure, and instead Geralt gentles the kiss by slow degrees until it’s soft, and sweet, and the lust-smell has almost faded from Amaranth’s scent. She breaks the kiss and raises an eyebrow at him, and Geralt says, awkwardly, “Not in town.”

“...Oh?” Amaranth says, not angrily but rather baffled.

“You’re loud,” Geralt says.

“I _can_ be quieter,” Amaranth says. Geralt frowns and shakes his head.

“I _like_ it,” he says, trying to find the right words. “I don’t like other people hearing.”

“I see,” Amaranth says, still a little dubious, but she curls up in his arms and falls asleep easily enough.

The next day she comes by at lunchtime and says to the innkeeper, “Do you mind if I steal Geralt for a few hours?”

“Go ahead,” the innkeeper says, “long as you bring him back by midafternoon,” and Amaranth leads Geralt out into the forest near town, half an hour’s brisk walk along a trail that’s clearly used so rarely it almost doesn’t exist, until they reach a little clearing next to a burbling stream, the banks lined with moss, no sign of any danger at all, and Amaranth sets a warding circle around the whole clearing and turns and gives Geralt an expectant look.

They’re far enough from town that even a witcher couldn’t hear them, and Geralt can’t hear or smell anything more dangerous than deer anywhere close by, and in any case he trusts Amaranth’s wards. And Geralt has spent three nights curled around Amaranth and _not_ fucking her, which has been its own unique form of torture.

“Sneaky,” he says, approvingly, and stalks towards her. Amaranth gives ground, grinning broadly, until she fetches up against a broad tree trunk, and Geralt plants a hand on either side of her head and _looms_.

Amaranth being Amaranth, her response is an even wider grin as she lets her head fall back against the tree. There’s no fear in her scent, just lavender and sage and joy and rising lust, the best smells in the world, and Geralt kisses her ravenously, wanting to taste that smile.

Her mouth tastes wonderful, and when he breaks the kiss to nuzzle his way down her throat, her skin tastes wonderful too: lavender and sage, lust and salt, and he wants to lick every inch of her skin, spread her out and _feast_ on her until she’s screaming with pleasure and he’s finally sated.

He doesn’t quite have enough time to do that. But he has enough time for at least a _start_ , and he goes to his knees and shoves her skirt up and gets one of her legs over his shoulder so he can get his mouth on her, sloppy and ravenous. Amaranth makes a sort of squeaky noise and wobbles, so Geralt reaches up to press her hips against the tree, and she reaches down to tangle her fingers in his hair, and the squeaky noise turns into a very nice moan indeed. Geralt hums happily and keeps licking.

The first time Amaranth comes, it’s with a bitten-off moan and a clench of her hands in Geralt’s hair. Good, but not good enough; Geralt gets one hand free so he can slide two fingers into her and crook them just so, and Amaranth’s second orgasm is much louder, a shout that rings from the trees as she clenches around his fingers and shudders under his tongue.

“ _Fuck_ , Geralt,” she gasps when she’s stopped shaking, and that sounds like a very good idea, actually; Geralt stands up, crowding her back against the tree, and gets a hand under her ass and fumbles his own trousers open and slides into her easy as a sword into its sheath.

“Fuck,” he agrees solemnly, and Amaranth laughs and wraps her legs around his hips and tugs him into a kiss.

“Someday I will explain the difference between an expletive and an _order_ ,” she begins, and he kisses her silent, laughing against her lips, and fucks into her slow and hard just the way that drives her wild. Her laughter turns into moaning, and she breaks the kiss to toss her head back against the tree-trunk and gasp in air in great gulps that come out as steadily louder moans. Geralt takes the beautifully-presented opportunity to lay little nipping bites all down her throat and then kiss back up it again, and she yanks at his hair a little too hard and the slight edge of pain is _wonderful_.

She comes on his cock, wailing her pleasure to the trees, and Geralt considers fucking her through to a fourth, but she _did_ promise they’d be back by midafternoon, and in any case he’s not sure he’s got the patience. He kisses her fiercely and lets go of his careful control, rutting into her hard, and she clutches at his shoulders to hold him close and gasps little moans with each thrust and _does_ come a fourth time, which is enough to tip him over the edge, sudden and hard enough that he has to brace a hand against the tree to hold himself up.

“Let’s not wait three days to do that again,” Amaranth says once they’ve both caught their breaths.

Geralt grunts agreement and leans back slowly so she can unhook her legs from his hips and stand up. Amaranth lets her skirts fall down and shakes them out a little bit and grimaces, patting at her pockets for a handkerchief, and Geralt glances up at the sun - still not _quite_ midafternoon - and goes to his knees again, pulling her skirts up and getting his mouth on her to lick her clean. Amaranth laughs, and then she moans, and then she’s working back up to screaming again, and Geralt takes pity on her wobbling knees and pulls her down onto the soft moss so she can spread her legs wide and not worry about falling over.

It turns out six orgasms is enough for Amaranth to push his head away and just lie there on the moss gasping for a while, and Geralt looks at the beautiful picture she makes and listens to the glorious little moans that signal the aftershocks as she slowly relaxes, and gets _himself_ off all over the moss with a handful of quick strokes.

“Come here and kiss me,” Amaranth says muzzily, and Geralt lies down next to her and kisses her until her breathing isn’t quite so ragged anymore.

*

They make it back by midafternoon, if only barely. Amaranth’s hair is horribly tangled, and there are a couple of twigs in it, and she gives Molly the serving girl such a smug look as they pass that Molly bursts into giggles and has to go hide in the kitchens, but they _do_ make it back. Geralt settles in to talk about monsters in a much better mood than he has been recently, and it seems to be catching; the townsfolk listening grin at him now and again, at least, which they weren’t doing before.

They leave at the end of the promised week, with the townsfolk waving behind them - something to which Geralt is not even a _little_ bit accustomed. He hasn’t had any rotten vegetables thrown at him at all. Fuck, some of the kids came and watched him drill every day and _cheered_ , and their parents didn’t drag them away, didn’t admonish them to keep their distance from the witcher in their midst.

The next town along, naturally, the people draw away from him like he’s got the plague, hide their children, and throw half-rotted produce at him until he and Amaranth are out of sight. It’s almost reassuring: Amaranth hasn’t somehow bewitched the entire world into thinking that Geralt is harmless, or something like that. He doesn’t really think she _would_ , but the way everyone in Jerichen was _nice_ to him was very, very disconcerting.

The only _problem_ , it turns out, is that when people notice they can’t get a rise out of Geralt by throwing rotten vegetables at him, some of them decide to try to get a rise out of his _companion_ , and the first time Geralt hears someone call, “Hey, you! Witcher’s whore! Come try a _real_ man!” he has a moment of shockingly vivid red rage, and almost leaps off of Roach’s back, his fists itching to punch the speaker so hard he’ll never say such things again.

Amaranth’s voice breaks the rage before Geralt can do anything, though: “There are no better men,” she calls back, “but kill me a manticore and I might consider it.”

Several of the other men in the crowd burst into laughter at their fellow’s expense, and thankfully Geralt and Amaranth are almost outside of town already, and no one bothers to chase them down the road. When they camp that night, though, Geralt has to bury his nose against Amaranth’s hair and just breathe for a while, reminding himself that _she_ is calm and content and utterly unbothered, before he can truly let go of that shockingly bitter rage.

“People are assholes,” Amaranth says gently when Geralt finally steps away again. “You know that.”

“They shouldn’t be assholes to _you_ ,” Geralt growls.

“That...is very sweet, actually,” Amaranth says, grinning. “Far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be assholes to _you_ , either, but unfortunately the world does not _actually_ conform to my desires.” She leans up to kiss him softly. “It’s _alright_ , Geralt. So they call me nasty things. I genuinely do not give a fuck.”

“Alright,” Geralt says, sighing, and lets the tension he’s been carrying all afternoon drain out of him, and goes off to find water and firewood.

That night he holds her closer even than usual, and Amaranth brings his hand up to her lips and kisses his knuckles, one by one, before cradling his hand to her chest and relaxing back against him, trusting him with her weight, her safety, her love.

It gets a little easier after that. There aren’t any other towns that are as wholeheartedly welcoming as Jerichen was, but the rumors of the witcher who travels with a storyteller, of the White Wolf who protects people, have clearly been spreading. Amaranth’s stories are compelling; people repeat them. And traveling with a young-looking woman who visibly trusts him apparently makes Geralt much less intimidating. They wind their way back towards Kaer Morhen as summer turns to autumn, and Geralt kills drowners and fleders and ghouls and once an ifrit, which earns him some _interesting_ burn scars on one arm, and Amaranth tells stories and makes friends - or at least friendly acquaintances.

They’re a few days away from Ostrov, the town at the foot of the path to Kaer Morhen, when Amaranth says, “So, should I be planning to winter with Jens and Olga at the inn again this year?”

Geralt blurts, “No,” before he can really think about it.

“No?” Amaranth asks, giving him a curious look.

“Witchers can bring their lovers to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I would like that.”

Amaranth blinks at him for a moment, and then smiles, slow and sweet. “I would also like that,” she says, and it’s that simple, apparently.

Geralt leads the way up the path to Kaer Morhen, wading through the steadily-heavier snowfall, and Amaranth follows him every step of the way.


	7. Winter

They’re not the first nor the last arrivals, and Geralt is unsurprised when Vesemir comes out to find them as they’re untacking the animals and Geralt is showing her where to stow Thistle’s saddle and bridle, and how the rather idiosyncratic latch to the stall door works.

“You’ve brought a friend,” he says, and Amaranth turns to give him her being-friendly-to-townspeople smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and Geralt is glad that she’s never turned it on _him_.

“This is Amaranth,” he says shortly, meeting Vesemir’s eyes squarely. “My lover.” To her, he adds, “Vesemir, my teacher.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Amaranth says, holding out a hand. Vesemir shakes it a little reluctantly.

“It’s all witchers here,” he says. “Did Geralt warn you of that?”

“He did,” Amaranth says. There’s no trace of fear in her scent, no uncertainty in her voice. “I go where Geralt goes, unless he bids me otherwise. Witchers don’t bother me.”

“Huh,” Vesemir says, and shrugs. “Well then. Dinner’ll be ready in half a candlemark or so.”

“Thank you,” Amaranth says.

Geralt shows her up to the room he shares with Eskel, and Amaranth tucks her packs onto a low shelf and looks around thoughtfully. “Comfortable,” she says at last. “Nice bed.”

“It is,” Geralt says, and if he wasn’t so hungry, he’d be very tempted to prove it right then and there. Amaranth grins like she can tell what he’s thinking, and likes it. Come to think of it, she probably _can_ \- or at least, she can definitely sense how much he wants to fuck her. “Dinner,” he says reluctantly, and Amaranth shrugs and follows him down to the dining hall.

Maybe two thirds of the witchers of the Wolf School have made it home already, and every one of them slews around to _stare_ at Amaranth when she comes in at Geralt’s side. He can feel the sudden tension in her shoulders, in her arm where it brushes against his, but she holds her head high and meets the stares evenly. There are plenty of empty seats, and Geralt claims a set of three across from Gascaden and Gweld, one for him and one for Amaranth and one for Eskel whenever he arrives. Gascaden gives him and Amaranth a look of utter bafflement, but he also pushes a tray of venison across the table, so Geralt figures he can be forgiven.

“What the fuck,” Clovis says, staring down the table at Amaranth. “Geralt, what the fuck, that’s a _woman_.”

“Yes,” Geralt says. “Amaranth.”

“Uh,” says Clovis. Amaranth is starting to smell amused, now, just faintly beneath the lavender and sage. “How the fuck does the _White Wolf_ get a woman to put up with him, when I can’t get one to give me the time of day?”

“Probably because Geralt isn’t an _asshole_ ,” Gweld says, and offers his hand across the table to Amaranth. “Sorry about him, we think he was hit in the head a few too many times in training. I’m Gweld.”

“Amaranth,” Amaranth says, taking Gweld’s hand in a firm shake. “And don’t worry about it; Geralt warned me people were likely to be disconcerted.”

Geralt is pretty sure he didn’t put it like that, but it is what he _meant_ , and by now Amaranth has clearly learned to translate from what Eskel calls ‘taciturn bastard’ into something a little more eloquent.

“That’s a fair assessment,” Gweld says, and Gascaden offers _his_ hand and asks what Amaranth’s trade is, and Tjold scoots down from his place further up the table to join the conversation, and by the end of dinner, the stares and mutterings have mostly stopped, and it sounds much like any other dinner at Kaer Morhen: rowdy and cheerful, full of boasting and the trading of hunt stories.

Vesemir intercepts Geralt as he’s bringing their plates over to the hatch that leads to the kitchen. “Alright,” he says gruffly. “Maybe bringing her along won’t end in disaster.”

It’s as close to a blessing as Geralt’s going to get from his teacher, and more than he really expected. “She won’t let it,” he says, because that’s true, and because it really does depend on _her_. Geralt can break noses all day long, and will if he has to, but it won’t change people’s minds; _Amaranth_ , who knows how to use words as well as Geralt can use his swords, will be the one to convince Geralt’s fellow witchers that he’s not crazy to have brought a lover home. She’s already won over Gweld and Gascaden and Tjold, all of whom have been laughing at her stories for a good half an hour now; and if Clovis is still giving her baffled looks and muttering under his breath, well, everyone knows Clovis is an asshole, and him being rude to Amaranth might actually _help_ matters. Nobody really wants to _agree_ with Clovis, after all.

Vesemir nods and claps Geralt on the shoulder, and Geralt nods back to his teacher and goes to collect Amaranth, who is apparently telling a story about that one time they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnessed something Geralt can only describe as a bedroom farce, what with the husband going in the door and the lover going out the window and the _other_ lover coming in the _back_ door. The resulting commotion had woken up three-quarters of the village and given Geralt a splitting headache, but in hindsight it _was_ sort of hilarious. Certainly Gweld and Gascaden and Tjold and even old Barmin think so, since they’re gathered around Amaranth and laughing fit to burst. Geralt waits until she finishes before he touches her shoulder.

Amaranth looks back at him immediately, smiling so bright it’s almost blinding. “You remember that, right?”

“Very high-pitched screaming,” Geralt says, which makes Gweld snort with laughter. “Bed?”

“Oh fuck yes,” Amaranth says, standing up immediately. “That thing you call a trail is meant for mountain goats, not poor unmodified humans.” And there _is_ a faint hint of pain in her scent, a slight hitch in the way she moves - she’s strong for a human, wiry and fit, but the Witchers’ Trail _is_ a difficult hike, and Geralt remembers sitting down after a long day of training, back before the Trial of the Grasses, and getting up again feeling like all his muscles had seized up.

So he picks her up, the way he’s seen men carrying their brides, one arm under her legs and the other under her back. Amaranth squeaks and laughs, and throws an arm around his neck to keep herself balanced, and says, “Goodnight, gentlemen, apparently I’m being carried off now.”

“Goodnight, Amaranth,” Gascaden says, and Gweld goes off into peals of laughter again, and Geralt carries Amaranth out of the hall and up the stairs.

She groans a little when he puts her down on the bed - not an appealing noise, a pain noise - and Geralt says, “Roll over.” Amaranth raises an eyebrow at him, but she rolls over onto her front, and Geralt kicks off his boots and kneels on the bed beside her, shoves her tunic up out of the way and gets his hands on her back, rubbing firmly, finding the knots and working them out one by one. Amaranth makes soft sounds and relaxes inch by inch until she’s a limp heap on the sheets, humming quietly with each stroke of Geralt’s hands. And then, slowly, her breathing and heartbeat gentle into the easy rhythm of sleep.

Geralt tugs her tunic back into place and shifts her up the bed until he can pull her boots off and tuck her under the covers, then takes his armor off and slides into bed behind her, curling around her and breathing in lavender and sage and contentment.

*

Eskel gets back sometime in the middle of the night - the fire has burned down to coals, and even a witcher’s eyes can’t quite see more than vague shapes, dark on dark. Geralt wakes up as soon as the door opens, but he’d know Eskel’s scent and the sound of his heartbeat anywhere, so all he does is murmur Eskel’s name and shift a little farther towards the center of the bed. Amaranth doesn’t even twitch, so deeply asleep a shout probably wouldn’t wake her.

Eskel apparently doesn’t notice she’s there - he _must_ be tired, not to smell lavender and sage, though perhaps he just thinks Geralt’s hung another bag of herbs off the bedpost - because when he flops into the bed and slings an arm around Geralt’s waist and his hand hits Amaranth he goes completely still for a long moment, and there’s a spike of shock through the scent of silver and steel and sword oil and _home_. But then Eskel says, “ _Huh_ ,” and buries his face against the back of Geralt’s neck and falls asleep between one breath and the next.

In the morning, Geralt wakes up first, which doesn’t surprise him at all, and extricates himself from between Eskel and Amaranth without either of them so much as twitching. He stands there looking at them for a long moment, Amaranth’s tangle of black hair and Eskel’s messy brown mop spread out over the pillows, both of them looking utterly at peace, and then scribbles a quick note on the slate and goes down to take care of the animals.

He comes back up about an hour later, leaving Roach and Thistle and Eskel’s patient Olive well-fed and watered and groomed, moving quietly in case Eskel and Amaranth are still asleep, and he has his hand on the door latch when he hears Eskel say, “How long until you convince Geralt to kick me out, then?”

Geralt goes very still. On the other side of the door, Amaranth says, voice so calm Geralt _knows_ it has to be iron control and not true equanimity, “There is no power on earth that could convince Geralt to set you aside, and even if I could, I would not.”

“Why not?” Eskel says. “You’ve got him year-round now - on the Path and in Kaer Morhen both -”

“Eskel,” Amaranth interrupts him sharply. “Months ago, I asked Geralt what he wanted most in all the world. You know who I am. If he had said he wanted to be the fucking Emperor of Nilfgaard, I would have _fucking well made him the Emperor of Nilfgaard_.”

“...Yes,” Eskel says, sounding like he doesn’t know where this is going.

“He said he wanted _us_. You, and me, and somewhere peaceful to spend the winters. You love him. I love him. He wants us both. You seem like a pretty decent fellow; I can’t imagine Geralt would love you so much if you _weren’t_. So I can fucking well share if you can.”

There’s a long pause. Geralt doesn’t even _breathe_ : he’s pretty sure if he opens this door right now, if he interrupts them, it will be a disaster that makes the worst fight he’s ever been in look like a pleasant afternoon picking _flowers_ in comparison.

Finally, _finally_ , Eskel says, “Huh. You know, I think I see why Geralt loves you.”

Amaranth laughs, breathless and a little wild. “It’s the swearing, I’m sure.”

“Definitely,” Eskel says, and there’s a note in his voice that Geralt has a little trouble parsing: relief, perhaps, or joy, or both of those and something else all muddled up together. “So what - what are we to each other, then?”

“We who love Geralt?” Amaranth is silent a moment, and then she chuckles softly and says, “Packmates. We’re packmates, in the White Wolf’s pack.”

“The White Wolf’s pack,” Eskel says slowly. “Yeah, alright. Packmate.”

“Packmate,” Amaranth says, and Geralt breathes out, lets the tension drain from his shoulders, and backs up silently to the stairs before striding back to the door without any attempt to keep his steps quiet. Eskel is sitting on the edge of the bed; Amaranth is standing by the window with a comb in her hand. They both turn to smile at him as he comes in.

“Thank you for tending Thistle,” Amaranth says. “And for the massage last night, for that matter.”

Geralt hums and nods, reels her in and kisses her softly, and then crosses the room to Eskel and bends down to kiss him thoroughly. Eskel makes a little surprised sound against his lips and then kisses back, eager and hungry, and by the time they break apart, panting, they’re both sprawled on the bed with their legs tangled together. Geralt rests his forehead against Eskel’s, sharing air, breathing in steel-and-silver-and-sword-oil-and- _home_.

“I’m going to go down and get breakfast,” Amaranth says quietly, sounding very happy, and as she passes the bed her scent is lavender-and-sage-and-contentment, and Eskel says, “Bring back some bread and cheese, packmate?”

“Can do,” she says, and the door closes behind her, and Eskel rolls Geralt onto his back and kisses him again.

Geralt doesn’t know how to say, _Thank whatever gods there might be that I can keep you both_ , or, _Thank you for getting along, for making a truce, for agreeing to share - to share me_ , or, _You are as much a part of me as my right hand_ , so he settles for kissing Eskel just as well as he can, pouring everything into it, hunger and need and gratitude alike.

“White Wolf,” Eskel murmurs against his lips. Geralt growls a little, just to make Eskel laugh, and then they’re both tearing at their clothes, desperate to get naked, and Eskel’s skin against his is a homecoming, a glory even before Eskel reaches down between them and gathers both their pricks into one broad hand.

“Fuck,” Geralt says, and Eskel laughs again, hand moving fast and rough, neither of them willing to slow down, not when they haven’t touched for nine fucking months.

“Fuck, I have _missed_ you,” Eskel says, and Geralt hauls him back into a kiss and bites at Eskel’s lips as he comes, and Eskel makes a sort of hoarse growling noise and follows suit two strokes later, and collapses on top of Geralt, heavy and warm and smelling like steel and silver and sword oil and _sex_.

“Missed you too,” Geralt says at last.

“Even with Amaranth?” Eskel asks, muffled by the way his face is smushed into Geralt’s shoulder.

“It’s not the same,” Geralt says slowly, feeling his way through the explanation with great care. A thought comes to him, one he had _months_ ago, the day Eskel and Amaranth first met each other, and it’s still the best metaphor he’s got. “Would you go hunting with only one sword?”

Eskel props himself up on one elbow and looks down at Geralt thoughtfully. “Not if you _paid_ me.”

“It’s like that,” Geralt says. “Silver and steel, and I need you _both_.”

“Huh,” Eskel says. “Am I silver or steel in this metaphor?”

Geralt shrugs. He hasn’t quite figured that out himself. Eskel hums and kisses Geralt, slow and sweet now that the first urgency has passed, and Geralt has almost forgotten the question when Eskel finally pulls away a little and says, “I’m steel, I think. Silver’s for magic, and steel’s for men.”

“Huh,” Geralt says. “Alright.” It fits, he thinks. It fits very well.

Eskel sniffs the air and laughs. “Fuck, I need a _bath_.”

“Yes,” Geralt says, and Eskel whacks him on the arm as he rolls out of bed.

“ _You_ can heat it, you impossible bastard,” he says, and Geralt follows him out of bed and helps him fill the tub - there’s enough snow built up on the windowsills from what must have been a heavy fall last night - and Eskel is soaking happily by the time Amaranth returns, bearing a basket of bread and cheese and a jar of preserves and a thick slab of smoked ham, enough food even for two hungry witchers, and the news that Vesemir wants to hear their reports later in the afternoon, once they’ve pried themselves out of bed.

“Alright, now I _really_ know why Geralt loves you,” Eskel says, when Amaranth hands him a hunk of bread wrapped around cheese and ham

“The way to a man’s heart _is_ his stomach,” Amaranth says, settling next to Geralt on the bed and leaning against him as he eats. “Unless you’re trying to kill him, in which case it’s between the ribs.”

Eskel guffaws. “Remind me not to piss you off, or at least to hide the swords first, packmate,” he says, and Amaranth says, laughing, “I’ll have you know I hardly ever stab _anyone_ ,” and Geralt wraps an arm around her to hold her close and inhales deeply: silver and steel, sword oil and lavender and sage, sex and contentment and _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> I have not read the books, watched the show, or played the videogames. What I _have_ done is read far too much fic, starting with Astolat and Dira Sudis, and then got a plotbunny that would not calm down until I wrote it. This is set in roughly 1195-1196, when Geralt is about 35-36 based on the birthdate given in the show, before the pogrom which kills many of the witchers of Kaer Morhen, and well before Geralt meets Dandelion, Yennefer, or Emhyr or any of the canonical plot really kicks off.
> 
> ...I have no idea _why_ this was such an insistent plotbunny, but here it is.
> 
> Beta by my baffled but extremely patient husband, who has kindly not given me too many odd looks for this.


End file.
